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Master of His Fate 


^ BY ^ 

J. MACLAREN COBBAN 

H 

AUTHOR OF “THE CURSE OF SOULS,” “TINTED VAPOURS,” ETC. 




COPYR/G^fr 

FEB 1OIB90 ' 


NEW YORK 

FRANK F. LOVELL & COMPANY 

142-144 Worth Street 




COPTRIGHT, 1890, 

BT 

JOHN W. LOVELL. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP. 

I. JULIUS COURTNEY, . , . 

II. A MYSTERIOUS CASE, . . • 

III. “M. DOLARO,” .... 

IV. THE MAN OF THE CROWD, 

V. THE REMARKABLE CASE OF LADY MARY FANE, 

VI. AT THE BEDSIDE OF THE DOCTOR, 

VII. CONTAINS A LOVE INTERLUDE, . . 

VIII. STRANGE SCENES IN CURZON STREET, 

IX. AN APPARITION AND A CONFESSION, 


PAGB 

7 

36 

59 

80 

95 

1 17 

129 

I3« 

156 


To Z. MENNELL, Esq. 


Mr DEAR Mennell^ 

It has bee 7 i my fortune to see something of 
the practice of the art of healing mider widely different 
conditions^ and I know none who better represents the most 
humane and most exacting of all professions than your- 
self The good doctor of this story — the born surgeon 
and healer^ the ever young and alert, the self-forgetful, 
the faithful friend, gifted with ^Hhat exquisite charity 
which can forgive all things ” — is studied from you. 

It is one of the greatest pleasures of my life to inscribe 
your name on this dedicatory page, and to subscribe 
myself 

Your sincere friend and grateful patient, 

f M ACL A REN Cobb A if. 


London^ November, 1889 . 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


CHAPTER I. 

JULIUS COURTNEY. 

The Hyacinth Club has the reputation of 
selecting its members from among the freshest 
and most active spirits in literature, science, 
and art. That is in a sense true, but activity in 
one or another of those fields is not a condition 
of membership; for, just as the listening Bos- 
well was the necessary complement of the talk- 
ing Johnson, so in the Hyacinth Club there is 
an indispensable contingent of passive members 
who find their liveliest satisfaction in hearing 
and looking on, rather than in speaking and 
doing. Something of the home principle of male 


8 


MASTEJ^ OF ms FA TE. 


and female is necessary for the completeness 
even of a club. 

The Hyacinth Club-house looks upon Pic- 
cadilly and the Green Park. The favorite 
place of concourse of its members is the mag- 
nificent smoking-room on the first floor, the 
bow-windows of which command a view up and 
down the fashionable thoroughfare, and over 
the trees and the undulating sward of the Park 
to the gates of Buckingham Palace. On a 
Monday afternoon in the beginning of May, the 
bow-windows were open, and several men sat 
in leather lounges (while one leaned against a 
window-sash) luxuriously smoking, and noting 
the warm, palpitating life of the world without. 
A storm which had been silently and doubt- 
fully glooming and gathering the night before 
had burst and poured in the morning, and it 
was such a spring afternoon as thrills the heart 
with new life and suffuses the soul with expec- 
tation — such an afternoon as makes all women 
appear beautiful and all men handsome. The 
south-west wind blew soft and balmy, and all 
nature rejoiced as the bride in the presence 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. g 

of the bride-groom. The trees in the Park 
weie full of sap, and their lusty buds were 
eagerly opening to the air and the light. 
The robin sang with a note almost as rich 
and sensuous as that of the thrush; and 
the shrill and restless sparrows chirped and 
chattered about the houses and among the 
horses’ feet, and were as full of the joy of life as 
the men and women who thronged the pave- 
ments or reclined in their carriages in the 
sumptuous ease of wealth and beauty. 

Of the men who languidly gazed upon the 
gay and splendid scene from the windows of 
the Club, none seemed so interested as the 
man who leaned against the window-frame. 
He appeared more than interested — absorbed, 
indeed — in the world without, and he looked 
bright and handsome enough, and charged 
enough with buoyant health, to be the ideal 
bridegroom of Nature in her springtide. 

He was a dark man, tall and well built, with 
clear brown eyes. His black hair (which was 
not cropped short, as is the fashion) had a lus- 
trous softness, and at the same time an elastic 


10 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


bushiness, which nothing but the finest-temp- 
ered health can give ; and his complexion, 
though tanned by exposure, had yet much of 
the smoothness of youth, save where the razor 
had passed upon his beard. Thus seen, a little 
way off, he appeared a young man in his rosy 
twenties ; on closer view and acquaintance, 
however, that superficial impression was con- 
tradicted by the set expression of his mouth 
and the calm observation and understanding of 
his eye, which spoke of ripe experience rather 
than of green hope. He bore a very good 
English name — Courtney ; and he was believed 
to be rich. There was no member of whom 
the Hyacinth Club was prouder than of him : 
though he had done nothing, it was commonly 
believed he could do anything he chose. No 
other was listened to with such attention, and 
there was nothing on which he could not 
throw a fresh and fascinating light. He was a 
constant spring of surprise and interest. While 
others were striving after income and reputa- 
tion, he calmly and modestly, without obtrusion 
or upbraiding, held on his own way, with un- 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


II 


surpassable curiosity, to the discovery of all 
which life might have to reveal. It was this, 
perhaps, as much as the charm of his manner 
and conversation, that made him so universal a 
favorite ; for how could envy or malice touch 
a man who competed at no point with his 
fellows ? 

His immediate neighbors, as he thus stood 
by the window, were a pair of journalists, sev- 
eral scientific men, and an artist 

“ Have you seen any of the picture-shows, 
Julius.^” asked the painter, Kew. 

Courtney slowly abstracted his gaze from 
without, and turned on his shoulder with the 
lazy, languid grace of a cat 

“ No,'’ said he, in a half-abseilt tone; I have 
just come up, and I've not thought of looking 
into picture-galleries yet” 

“ Been in the country "I ” asked Kew. 

“ Yes, I’ve been in the country,” said Court- 
ney, still as if his attention was elsewhere, 

“ It must be looking lovely,” said Kew. 

“ It is — exquisite ! ” said Courtney, waking up 
at length to a full glow of interest “ That's 


12 


MASTEIi OF HIS FATE. 


why I don’t want to go and stare at pictures. 
In the spring, to see the fresh, virginal, delicious 
green of a bush against an old dry brick wall, 
gives a keener pleasure than the best picture 
that ever was painted.” 

I thought,” said Kew, “ you had a taste for 
Art ; I thought you enjoyed it.” 

“ So I do, my dear fellow, but not now, — not 
at this particular present. When I feel the 
warm sun on my back and breathe the soft air, I 
want no more ; they are more than Art can give 
— they are nature, and, of course, it goes without 
saying that Art can never compete with nature 
in creating human pleasure. I mean no dis- 
paragement of your work, Kew, or any artist’s 
work ; but I can’t endure Art except in winter 
when everything (almost) must be artificial to be 
endurable. A winter may come in one’s life — 
I wonder if it will } — when one would rather 
look at the picture of a woman than at the 
woman herself. Meantime I no more need 
pictures than I need fires ; I warm both hands 
and heart at the fire of life.” 


MAS TER OF HIS FA TE. 1 3 

“ Ah ! ” said Kew, with a wistful lack of com- 
prehension. 

“ That’s why I believe/’ said Courtney, with 
a sudden turn of reflection^ “ there is in warm 
countries no Art of our small domestic kind.” 

“Just so,” said Kew; while Dingley Dell, 
the Art critic, made a note of Courtney’s 
words. 

“ Look here ! ” exclaimed Dr. Embro, an old 
scientific man of Scottish extraction, who, in 
impatience with such transcendental talk, had 
taken up ‘ The St. James’s Gazette.’ “ What 
do you make of this queer case at the Hotel- 
Dieu in Paris ? I see it’s taken from ‘ The 
Daily Telegraph ; ’ ” and he began to read it. 

“ Oh,” said Kew, “ we all read that this morn- 
mg. 

Dr. Embro,” said Courtney, again looking 
idly out of v/indow, “ is like a French journal : 
full of the news of the day before yesterday.” 

“ Have you read it yourself, Julius.?^ ” asked 
Embro, amid the laughter of his neighbors. 

“ No,” said Julius, carelessly; “ and if it’s a 
hospital case I don’t want to read it.” 


14 MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 

“ What ! ” said Embro, with heavy irony. 
“You say that? You, a pupil of the great 
Dubois and the greater Charbon ! But here 
comes a greater than Charbon — the celebrated 
Dr. Lefevre himself. Come now, L.efevre, you 
tell us what you think of this Paris hospital 
case.” 

“ Presently, Embro,” said Lefevre, who had 
just perceived his friend Courtney. “ Ha, 
Julius ! ” said he, crossing to him and taking his 
hand; “ you’re looking uncommonly well.” 

“ Yes,” said Julius, “ I am well.’ 

“ And where have you been all this while ? ” 
asked the doctor. 

“ Oh,” said Julius, turning his gaze again out 
of window, “ I have been rambling everywhere, 
between Dan and Beersheba.” 

“ And all is vanity, eh ? ” said the doctor. 

“Well,” said Julius, looking at him, “that 
depends — that very much depends. But can 
there be any question of vanity or vexation in 
this sweet, glorious sunshine ? ” and he stretched 
out his hands as if he burgeoned forth to wel- 
come it. 


MASTER OF ms FA TE. 


15 


“ Perhaps not,” said Lefebvre. “ Come and 
sit down and let us talk.” 

They were retiring from the window when 
Embro’s voice again sounded at Lefevre’s elbow 
— “ Come now, Lefevre ; what’s the meaning 
of that Paris case } ” 

“ What Paris case ? ” 

Embro answered by handing him the paper. 
He took it, and read as follows : 

“About a month ago a strange case of complete 
mental collapse was received into the Hotel-Dieu. A 
fresh healthy girl, of the working class, about twenty 
years of age, and comfortably dressed, presented her- 
self at a police-station near the Odeon and asked for 
shelter. As she did not appear to be in full possession 
of her mental faculties, she was sent to the Hotel-Dieu, 
where she remained in a semi-comatose condition. Her 
memory did not go farther back than the hour of her 
application at the police-station. She was entirely 
ignorant of her previous history, and had even forgotten 
her name. The minds of the medical staff of the Hotel- 
Dieu were very much exercised with her condition ; but 
it was not till about a week ago that they succeeded in 
restoring to any extent her mental consciousness and 
her memory. She then remembered the events im- 
mediately preceding her application to the police. It 
had come on to rain, she said, and she was hurrying 
along to escape from it, when a gentleman in a cloak 
came to her side and politely offered to give her the 


i6 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE, 


shelter of his umbrella. She accepted ; the gentleman 
seemed old and ill. He asked her to take his arm. She 
did so, and very soon she felt as if her strength had 
gone from her ; a cold shiver crept over her ; she 
trembled and tottered ; but with all that she did not 
find her sensations disagreeable exactly or alarming ; 
so little so, indeed, that she never thought of letting go 
the gentleman's arm. Her head buzzed, and a kind of 
darkness came over her. Then all seemed to clear, and 
she found herself alone near the police-station, remem- 
bering nothing. Being asked to further describe the 
gentleman, she said he was tall and dark, with a pleas- 
ant voice and wonderful eyes, that made you feel you 
must do whatever he wished. The police have made 
inquiries, but after such a lapse of time it is not surpris- 
ing that no trace of him can be found. 


Well ? ” asked Embro, when Lefevre had 
raised his eyes from the paper. “ What do 
you think of it ? ” 

“ Curious,” said Lefevre, “ I can’t say more, 
since I know nothing of it but this. Have 
you read it, Julius?” 

“ No,” said Julius ; “ I hate what people call 
news ; and when I take up a paper, it’s only 
to look at the Weather Forecasts.” Lefevre 
handed him the paper, which he took with an 
unconcealed look of repulsion. “ If it’s some 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


17 

case of disease,” said he, “ it will make me ill.” 

“ Oh, no,” said Lefevre ; “ it’s not painful, 
but it’s curious ; ” and so J ulius set himself to 
read it. 

“ But come,” said Embro, posing the ques- 
tion with his forefinger ; “ do you believe that 
story, Lefevre ? ” 

“ Though it’s French, and from the ‘ Tele- 
graph,’ ” said Lefevre, “ 1 see no reason to dis* 
believe it.” 

“ Come.” said Embro, “ come — you’re shirk- 
ing the question.” 

“ I confess,” said Lefevre, “ I’ve no desire to 
discuss it You think me prejudiced in favor 
of anything of the kind ; perhaps I think you 
prejudiced against it: where, then, is the good 
of discussion ” 

“ Well, now,” said the unabashed Embro, 
“ I’ll tell you what I think. Here’s a story” 
— Julius at that instant handed back the paper 
to him — “ of a healthy young woman mesmer- 
ized, hypnotized, or somnambulized, or what- 
ever you like to call it, in the public street, by 
some man that casually comes up to her, and 


1 8 MASTER OF BIS FA TE. 

her brain so affected that her memory goes ! 
I say it’s inconceivable ! — impossible 1 ” And 
he slapped the paper down on the table. 

The others looked on with grim satisfaction 
at the prospect of an argument between the 
two representatives of rival schools; and it 
was noteworthy that, as they looked, they 
turned a referring glance on Courtney, as if 
it were a foregone conclusion that he must 
be the final arbiter. He, however, sat ab- 
stracted, with his eyes on the floor, and with 
one hand propping his chin and the other 
drumming on the arm of his chair. 

“ I’m not a scientific, man,” said the jour- 
nalist “"who was not an Art critic, “ and I am 
not prejudiced either way about this story ; 
but it seems to me, Embro, that you view 
the thing through a very ordinary fallacy, and 
make a double mistake. You confound the 
relatively inconceivable with the absolutely im- 
possible : this story is relatively inconceivable 
to you, and therefore you say it is absolutely 
impossible.” 

“ Is there such a thing as an absolute impos- 


master of his fate. jg 

sibility? ” murmured Julius, who still sat with his 
chin in his hand, looking as if he considered the 
“ thing ” from a long way off as one of a multi- 
tude of other things. 

“ I do not believe there is,” said the jour- 
nalist ; “ but ” 

“ Don’t let us lose ourselves in metaphysics,” 
broke in Embro. Then turning to Courtney, 
whose direct intelligent gaze seemed to discon- 
cert him, he said, “now, Julius, you’ve seen, I 
daresay, a good many things we have not seen, 
— have you ever seen or known a case like this 
we’re talking about ? " 

“ I can’t say I have,” said Julius. 

“ There you are ! ” quoth Embro, in triumph. 

“ But,” continued Julius, “ I don’t therefore 
nail that case down as false.” 

“ Do you mean to say,” exclaimed Embro, 
“ that you have lived all your years, and studied 
science at the Salpetriere, — or what they call 
science there, — and studied and seen God 
knows what else besides, and you can’t pro- 
nounce an opinion from all you know on a case 
of this sort ? ” 


io 


MASTER OE HIS PATE, 


“ Oh yes,” said J ulius quietly, “ I can pro- 
nounce an opinion ; but what’s the use of that ? 
I think that case is true, but I don’t know that 
it is ; and therefore I can’t argue about it, for 
argument should come from knowledge, and I 
have none. I have a few opinions, and I am 
always ready to receive impressions ; but, be- 
sides some schoolboy facts that are common 
property, the only thing I know — I am certain 
of — is, as some man says, Lifes a dream 
worth dreammg^ ” 

“You’re too high-falutin for me, Julius,” said 
Embro, shaking his head. “ But my opinion, 
founded on my knowledge,, is that this story is 
a hallucination of the young woman’s noddle ! ” 

“ And how much, Embro,” laughed Julius, 
rising to leave the circle, “ is the argument ad- 
vanced by your ticketing the case with that 
long word ? ” 

“ To say ‘ hallucination,’ quoth Lefevre, “is 
a convenient way of giving inquiry the slip.” 

“ My dear Embro,” said Julius, — and he 
spoke with an emphasis, and looked down on 
Embro with a bright vivacity of eye which fore- 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


21 


warned the circle of one of his eloquent flashes ; 
a smile of expectant enjoyment passed round, 
hallucination is the dust-heap and limbo of 
the meanly-equipped man of science to-day, just 
as witchcraft was a few hundred years ago. 
The poor creature of science long ago, when 
he came upon any pathological or psychologi- 
cal manifestation he did not understand, used 
to say, ‘ Witchcraft I Away with it to the 

limbo!* To-day he says, '‘Hallucination! 
Away with it to the dust-heap ! ’ It is a pity,” 
said he, with a laugh, “ you ever took to science, 
Embro.” 

“ And why, may I ask } ’* said Embro. 

“ Oh, you’d have been great as an orthodox 
theologian of the Kirk ; the cock-sureness of 
theology would have suited you like your own 
coat. You are not at home in science, for you 
have no imagination.” 

It was characteristic of the peculiar regard in 
which Julius was held that whatever he said or 
did appeared natural and pleasant, — like the 
innocent actions and the simple, truthful speech 
of a child. Not even Embro was offended 


22 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


with these last words of his ; the others 
laughed ; Embro smiled, though with a certain 
sourness. 

“ Pooh, Julius ! ” said he ; “ what are you 
talking about 1 Science is the examination of 
facts, and what has imagination to do with 
that 1 Reason, sir, is what you want ! 

“ My dear Embro,” said Julius, “ there are 
several kinds of facts. There are, for instance, 
big facts and little facts, — clean facts and dirty 
facts. Imagination raises you and gives you a 
high and comprehensive view of them all ; your 
mere reason keeps you down in some noisome 
corner, like the man with the muck-rake.” 

“ Hear, hear ! cried the journalist and the 
artist heartily. 

‘^You’re wrong, Julius,” said Embro, — 
“quite wrong. Keep your imagination for 
painting and poetry. In science it just leads 
you the devil’s own dance, and fills you with 
delusions.” 

Julius paused, and bent on him his peculiar 
look, which made a man feel he was being seen 
through and through. 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


23 


“ I am surprised, Embro,” said he, “ that one 
can live all your years and not find that the 
illusions of life are its best part. If you leave 
me the illusions. I’ll give you all the realities. 
But how can we stay babbling and quibbling 
here all this delicious afternoon I must go 
out and see green things and beasts. Come 
with me, Lefevre, to the Zoological Gardens; 
it will do you good.” 

“ I tell you what,” said Lefevre, looking at 
the clock as they moved away ; “ my mother 
and sister will call for me with the carriage in 
less than half an hour; come with us for a 
drive.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Julius ; “ that’s a good idea.” 

“ And I,” said Lefevre, “ must have a cup of 
tea in the meantime. Come and sit down, and 
tell me where you have been.” 

But when they had sat down, Julius was 
little inclined to divagate into an account of his 
travels. His glance swept round and noted 
everything; he remarked on a soft effect of a 
shaft of sunshine that lit up the small conser- 
vatory, and burnished the green of a certain 


24 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


plant ; he perceived a fine black Persian cat, 
the latest pet of the club, and exclaimed, 
“What a beautiful, superb creature!” He 
called it, and it came, daintily sniffed at his 
leg, and leaped on his lap, where he stroked 
and fondled it. And all the while he continued 
to discuss illusion, while Lefevre poured and 
drank tea (tea which Julius would not share : 
tea, he said, did not agree with him). 

“ It bothers me, ” he said, “ to imagine how a 
man like Embro gets any satisfaction out of 
life, for ever mumbling the bare dry bones of 
science. Such a life as his might as well be 
passed in the receiver of an air-pump.” 

“ Still the old Julius! ” said the doctor, with 
a smile. “ Still dreaming and wandering, 
interested in everything, but having nothing to 
do ! ” 

“ Nothing to do, my dear fellow } ” said 
Julius. “ I’ve all the world to enjoy !” and he 
buried his cheek in the soft fur of the cat. 

“ A purpose in life, however,” said Lefevre, 
“gives an extraordinary zest to all enjoyment.” 

“ To live,” said Julius, “ is surely the purpose 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


25 


of life. Any smaller, any more obvious pur- 
pose, will spoil life, just as it spoils Art.” 

“ I believe, my boy, you are wrong in both,” 
said Lefevre. “ Art without a purpose goes 
off into all sorts of madness and extrava- 
gance, and so does life.” 

“ You really think so } ” said Julius, his 
attention fixed for an instant, and looking as if 
he had set up the point and regarded it at 
a distance. “ Yes ; perhaps it does.” But the 
next moment his attention seemed given to the 
cat ; he fondled it, and talked to it soothingly. 

‘‘ I am sure of it,” said Lefevre. “ Just listen 
to me, Julius. You have wonderful intelligence 
and penetration in everything. You are fond 
of science ; science needs men like you more 
than the dull plodders that usually take to it. 
When you were in Charbon’s class you were 
his favorite and his best pupil, — don’t I re- 
member ? — and if you liked you could be 
the greatest physician of the age.” 

“It is treason to yourself to say such a 
thing.” 

“ Your fame would soon eclipse mine.” 


26 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE, 


“Fame! fame!” exclaimed Julius, for an 
instant showing irritation. “ I would not give 
a penny-piece for fame if all the magicians of 
the East came crying it down the streets ! 
Why should I seek fame 1 What good would 
it do me if I had it } ” 

“ Well, well,” said Lefevre; “ let fame alone : 
you might be as unknown as you like, and 
do a world of good in practice among the 
poor.’’ 

Julius looked at him, and set the cat down. 

“ My dear Lefevre,” said he, “ I did not 
think you could urge such common twaddle ! 
You know well enough, — nobody knows better, 
first of all, that there are already more men 
waiting to do that kind of thing than can find 
occupation : why should I go down among 
them and try to take their work } And you 
know, in the next place, that medical philan- 
thropy, like all other philanthropy, is so over- 
done that the race is fast deteriorating ; we 
strive with so much success to keep the sickly 
and the diseased alive, that perfect health is 
scarcely known, Life without health can be 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


27 


nothing but a weariness : why should it be 
reckoned a praiseworthy thing to keep it going 
at any price ? If life became a burden to me, 1 
should lay it down.” 

“ But,” said Lefevre, earnestly, “ your life 
surely is not your own to do with it what 
you like ! ” 

“ In the name of truth, Lefevre,” answered 
Julius, “ if my life is not my own, what is } 
I get its elements from others, but I fashion it 
myself, just as much as the sculptor shapes his 
statue, or the poet turns his poem. You don’t 
deny to the sculptor the right to smash his 
statue if it does not please him, nor to the poet 
the right to burn his manuscript ; — why should 
you deny me the right to dispose of my life } I 
know — I know,” said he, seeing Lefevre open 
his mouth and raise his hand for another 
observation, “ that your opinion is the common 
one, but that is the only sanction it has; it has 
the sanction neither of true morality nor of 
true, religion ! But here is the waiter to tell 
you the carriage is come. I’m glad. Let us 
get out into the air and the sunshiny,” 


28 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


The carriage was the doctor’s own ; his 
mother, although the widow of a Court phy- 
sician, was too poor to maintain, much equip- 
age, but she made what use she pleased of her 
son’s possessions. When Lady Lefevre saw 
Julius at the carriage-door, she broke into 
smiles and cries of welcome. 

“ Where have you been this long, long 
while, Julius ? ” said she. “ This is Julius 
Courtney, Nora. You remember Nora, Julius, 
when she was a little girl in frocks } ” 

“ She now wears remarkable gowns,” chimed 
in the doctor. 

“ Which,” said Julius, “ I have no doubt are 
becoming.” 

“ My brother,” said Nora, with a sunny 
smile, “ is jealous ; because, being a doctor, 
he must wear only dowdy clothes of dingy 
colors.” 

“We have finished at school and college, 
and been presented at Court,” laughed Lady 
Lefevre. 

“ And,” broke in the brother, “ we have had 
cards engraved with our full name, Leonora,'' 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


29 


“ With all this,” said Lady Lefevre, “ I hope 
you won’t be afraid of us.” 

“ I see no reason,” said Julius. “ For, if I 
may say so, I like everything in Nature, and it 
seems to me Nature has had more to do with 
the finishing you speak of than the school- 
mistress or the college professor.” 

“ There he is already,” laughed Lady Le- 
fevre, “ with his equivocal compliments. I 
shouldn’t wonder if he says that, my dear, 
because you have not yet had more than a 
word to say for yourself.” 

By that time Lefevre and Julius were seated, 
and the carriage was rolling along towards the 
Park. Julius sat immediately opposite Lady 
Lefevre, but he included both her and Nora in 
his talk and his bright glances. The doctor 
sat agreeably suffused with delight and wonder. 
No one, as has been seen, had a higher opinion 
of Courtney’s rare powers, or had had more 
various evidence of them, than Lefevre, but 
even he had never known his friend so bril- 
liant. He was instinct with life and eloquence. 
His f^e shone as with an inner light, and his 


30 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


talk was bright, searching, and ironical. The 
amazing thing, however, was that Julius had as 
stimulating and intoxicating an influence on 
Nora as, it was clear, Nora had on him. His 
sister had not appeared to Lefevre hitherto 
more than a beautiful, healthy, shy girl of 
tolerable intelligence ; now she showed that she 
had brilliance and wit, and, moreover, that she 
understood Julius as one native of a strange 
realm understands another. When they en- 
tered the Park, they were the observed of all. 
And, indeed, Leonora Lefevre was a vision to 
excite the worship of those least inclined to 
idolatry of Nature. She was of the noblest 
type of English beauty, and she seemed as 
calmly unconscious of its excellence and rarity 
as one of the grand Greek women of the 
Parthenon. She had, however, a sensuous ful- 
ness and bloom, a queenly carriage of head and 
neck, a clearness of feature, and a liquid kind- 
ness of eye that suggested a deep potentiality 
of passion. 

They drove round the Row, and round again, 
and they talked and laughed their fill of 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


31 


wisdom and frivolity and folly. To be foolish 
wisely and gracefully is a rare attainment. 
When they had almost completed their third 
round, Julius (who had finished a marvellous 
story of a fairy princess and a cat) said, “ I can 
see you are fond of beasts. Miss Lefevre. I 
should like to take you to the Zoological Gar- 
dens and show you my favorites there. May 
we go now. Lady Lefevre } ” 

“ By all means,’' said Lady Lefevre, “ let us 
go. What do you say, John ” 

“ Oh, wherever you like, mother,” answered 
her son. 

Arrived in the Gardens, Julius took posses- 
sion of his companions, and exerted all his arts 
to charm and fascinate. He led the ladies 
from cage to cage, from enclosure to enclosure, 
showed himself as familiar with the characters 
and habits of their wild denizens as a farmer is 
with those of his stock : and they responded to 
his strange calls, to his gentleness and fearless- 
ness, with an alert understanding and confi- 
dence beautiful to see. His favorites were 
certain creatures of the deer species, which 


MASTER OF ff/S FATE. 


32 

crowded to their fences to sniff his clothes, and 
to lick his hands, which he abandoned to their 
caresses with manifest satisfaction. His ex- 
ample encouraged the queenly Nora and her 
sprightly mother to feed the beautiful creatures 
with bread and buns, and to feel the suffusion 
of pleasure derived from the contact of their 
soft lips with the palm of the hand. After 
that they were scarcely astonished when, with- 
out bravado, but clearly with simple confidence 
and enjoyment, Julius put his hand within the 
bars of the lion’s cage and scratched the ears 
of a lioness, murmuring the while in a strange 
tongue such fond sounds as only those use who 
are on the best terms with animals. The great 
brute rose to his touch, closing its eyes, and 
bearing up its head like a cat. 

Then came an incident that deeply impressed 
the Lefevres. Julius went to a cage in which, 
he said, there was a recent arrival — a leopard 
from the “ Land of the Setting Sun,” the roman- 
tic land of the Moors. The creature crouched 
sulking in the back of the cage. Julius tapped 
on the bars, and entreated her in the language 


MASTER OF ms FATE. 


33 


of her native land, “ Ya, dudu I ya, lellatsi ! ” 
She bounded to him with a “ wir-r-r'' of delight, 
leaned and rubbed herself against the bars, and 
gave herself up to be stroked and fondled. 
When he left her, she cried after him piteously, 
and wistfully watched him out of sight. 

“ Do you know the beautiful creature 1 ” 
asked Lady Lefevre. 

“Yes,” answered Julius quietly ; “I brought 
her over some months ago.” 

Lefevre had explained to his mother that 
Julius had always been on friendly or fond 
terms with animals, but never till now had he 
seen the remarkable understanding he clearly 
maintained with them. 

“ Look ! ” said Lady Lefevre to her son as 
they turned to leave the Gardens. “ He seems 
to have fascinated Nora as much as the beasts.” 

Nora stood a little aloof, regarding Julius in 
an ecstasy of admiration. When she found 
her mother was looking at her, her eyes sank, 
and as it were a veil of blushes fell over her. 
Mother and son walked on first, and Julius 
followed with Nora. 


3 


34 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


“ He is a most charming and extraordinary 
man,” said the mother. 

“ He is,” said the son, “ and amazingly 
intelligent.” 

“ He seems to know everything, and to have 
been everywhere, — to have been a kind of roll- 
ing stone. If anything should come of this, I 
suppose he can afford to marry. You ought 
to know about him.” 

“ I believe I know as much as any one.” 

“He has no profession .f* ” queried the old 
lady. 

“ He has no profession ; but I suppose he 
could afford it,” said Lefevre musingly. 

“ You don’t like the idea,” said his mother. 

“ Not much. I scarce know why. But I 
somehow think of him as not having enough 
sense of the responsibility of life.” 

“ I suppose his people are of the right sort? ” 

“ I suppose they are ; though I don’t know 
if he has any people,” said he, with a laugh, 
“ He is the kind of man who does not need 
parents or relations.” 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


'S5 

“ Still, hadn’t you better try to find out what 
he may have in that line ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Lefevre; “perhaps I had.” 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 




CHAPTER II. 

A MYSTERIOUS CASE. 

The two friends returned, as they had ar- 
ranged, to the Hyacinth Club for dinner. 
Courtney’s coruscating brilliancy sank into 
almost total darkness when they parted from 
Lady and Miss Lefevre, and when they sat 
down to table he was preoccupied and silent, 
yet in no proper sense downcast or dull. 
Lefevre noted, while they ate, that there was 
clear speculation in his eye, that he was not 
vaguely dreaming, but with alert intelligence 
examining some question, or facing some con- 
tingency; and it was natural he should think 
that the question or contingency must concern 
Nora as much as Julius. Yet he made no 
overture of understanding, for he knew that 
Courtney seldom offered confidence or desired 
sympathy; not that he was churlish or re- 


MASTER OF ms FA TE, 


37 


served, but simply that he was usually sufficient 
unto himself, both for counsel and for consola- 
tion. Lefevre was therefore surprised when he 
was suddenly asked a question, which was with- 
out context in his own thought. 

“ Have you ever found something happen or 
appear,” said Julius, “ that completely upsets 
your point of view, and tumbles down your 
scheme of life, like a stick thrust between your 
legs when you are running ? ” 

“ I have known,” said Lefevre, “ a new fact 
arise and upset a whole scientific theory. 
That’s often a good thing,” he added, with a 
pointed glance ; “ for it compels a reconstruc- 
tion of the theory on a wider and sounder 
basis.” 

“Yes,” murmured Julius; “that may be. 
But I should think it does not often happen 
that the new fact swallows up all the details 
that supported your theory, — as Aaron’s rod, 
turned into a serpent, swallowed up the ser- 
pent-rods of the magicians of Egypt, — so that 
there is no longer any theory, but only one 
great, glorious fact. 1 do admire,” he ex- 


MASTER OF ms FATE. 


38 

claimed, swerving suddenly, “ the imagination 
of those old Greeks, with their beautiful, half- 
divine personifications of the Spirits of Air and 
Earth and Sea ! But their imagination never 
conceived a goddess that embodied them all ! 

“ I have often thought, Julius,*’ said Lefevre, 
“ that you must be some such embodiment 
yourself ; for you are not ’quite human, you 
know.” 

The doctor said that with a clear recollection 
of his mother’s request. He hoped that his 
friend would take the cue, and tell him some- 
thing of his family. Julius, however, said noth- 
ing but “ Indeed.” Lefevre then tried to tempt 
him into confession by talking about his own 
father and mother, and by relating how the 
French name “ Lefevre” came to be domiciled 
in England ; but Julius ignored the temptation, 
and dismissed the question in an eloquent 
flourish. 

“ What does a man want with a family and a 
name.f^ They only tie him to the earth, as Gul- 
liver was tied by the people of Lilliput. We 
have life and health , — if we have them, — and 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


39 


it is only veiled prurience to inquire whence we 
got them. A man can’t help having a father 
and a mother, I suppose; but he need not be 
always reminding himself of the fact; no other 
creature on earth does. For myself, I wish I 
were like that extraordinary person, Melchize- 
dek, without father and without mother, with- 
out descent, having neither beginning of days 
nor end of life.” 

In a little while the friends parted. Lefevre 
said he had work to do, but he did not antici- 
pate such work as he had to turn to that night. 
Though the doctor was a bachelor, he had a 
professional residence apart from his mother 
and sister. They lived in a small house in 
Curzon Street ; he dwelt in Savile Row. Sa- 
vile Row was a place of consequence long 
before Regent Street was thought of, but now 
they are few who know of its existence. Fash- 
ion ignores it. It is tenanted by small clubs, 
learned societies, and doctors. It slumbers in 
genteel decorum, with its back to the garish 
modern thoroughfare. It is always quiet, but 
by nine o’clock of a dark evening it is deserted 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


40 

When Dr. Lefevre, therefore, stepped out of 
his hired hansom, and prepared to put his 
latch-key in his own door, he was arrested by a 
hoarse-voiced hawker of evening news bursting 
in upon the repose of the Row with a contin- 
uous roar of “ Special — Mystery — Paper — 
Railways — Special— Brighton — Paper — Victo- 
ria — Special ! ” It was with some effort, and 
only when the man was close at hand, that he 
interpreted the sounds into these words. 

“ Paper, sir,” said the man ; and he bought 
it and went in. He entered his dining-room 
and read the following paragraph : — 

“ A Mysterious Case. 

“A report has reached us that a young man, about 
two or four and twenty years of age, whose name is at 
present unknown, was found yesterday (Sunday) to all 
appearance dead in a first-class carriage of the 5 p. m. 
train from Brighton to Victoria. The discovery was 
only made at Grosvenor Road Station, where tickets 
are taken before entering Victoria. At Victoria the 
body was searched for purposes of identification, and 
there was found upon him a card with the following 
remarkable inscription : — 1 am not dead. Take me to 
the St. James s Hospital.'' To St. James's Hospital, ac- 
cordingly, the young man was conveyed. It seems 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


41 


probable he is in a condition of trance — not for the first 
time — since he was provided with the card,’ and knew 
the hospital with which is associated in all men’s 
minds the name of Dr. Lefevre, who is so famous for 
his skill in the treatment of nervous disorders.” 

In matters of plain duty Dr. Lefevre had 
got into the excellent habit of acting first and 
thinking afterwards. He at once rang the 
bell, and ordered the responsible serving-man. 
who appeared to call a cab. The man went to 
the door and sounded his shrill whistle, grate- 
ful to the ears of several loitering cabbies. 
There was a mad race of growlers and han- 
soms for the open door. Dr. Lefevre got into 
the first hansom that drew up, and drove off to 
the hospital. By that time he had told himself 
that the young man must be a former patient 
of his (though he did not remember any such), 
and that he ought to see him at once, although 
it is not customary for the visiting physician of 
a hospital to appear, except between fixed 
hours of certain days. He made nothing of 
the mystery which the newspaper wished, after 
the manner of its kind, to cast about the case, 
and thought of other things, while he smoked 


42 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


cigarettes, till he reached the hospital. The 
house-physician was somewhat surprised by 
his appearance. 

“ I have just read that paragraph,” said 
Lefevre, handing him the paper. 

“ Oh yes, sir,” said the house-physician. 
“ The man was brought in last night. Dr. 
Dowling ” [the resident assistant-physician] 
“ saw him, and thought it a case of ordinary 
trance, that could easily wait till you came, as 
usual, to-morrow.” 

“ Ah, well,” said Lefevre, “ let me see him.” 

Seen thus, the physician appeared a different 
person from the cheerful, modest man of the 
Hyacinth Club. He had now put on the 
responsibility of men’s health and the enthu- 
siasm of his profession. He seemed to swell in 
proportions and dignity, though his eye still 
beamed with a calm and kindly light. 

The young man led the way down the 
echoing flagged passage, and up the flight of 
stone stairs. As they went they encountered 
many silent female figures, clean and white, 
going up or down (it was the time of changing 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


43 


nurses), so that a fanciful stranger might well 
have thought of the stairway reaching from 
earth to heaven, on which the angels of God 
were seen ascending and descending. A 
stranger, too, would have noted the peculiar 
odors that hung about the stairs and passages, 
as if the ghosts of medicines escaped from the 
chemist’s bottles were hovering in the air. 
Opening first an outer and then an inner door, 
Lefevre and his companion entered a large 
and lofty ward. The room was dark, save for 
the light of the fire and of a shaded lamp, by 
which, within a screen, the night-nurse .sat 
conning her list of night-duties. The evening 
was just beginning out of doors, — shop-fronts 
were flaring, taverns were becoming noisy, and 
brilliantly-lit theatres and music-halls were set- 
tling down to business, — but here night and 
darkness had set in more than an hour before. 
Indeed, in these beds of languishing, which 
stretched away down either side of the ward, 
night was hardly to be distinguished from day, 
save for the sunlight and the occasional excite- 
ment of the doctor’s visit ; and many there 


44 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


were, who cried to themselves in the morning, 
“ Would God it were evening ! ” and in the 
evening, “ Would God it were morning ! ” But 
there was yet this other difference, that disease 
and doctor, fear and hope, gossip and grum- 
bling, newspaper and Bible and tract, were all 
forgotten in the night, for some time at least, 
and Nature’s kind restorer, sleep, went softly 
round among the beds and soothed the weary 
spirits into peace. 

Lefevre and the house-physician passed 
silently up the ward between the rows of 
silent blue-quilted beds, while the nurse came 
silently to meet them with her lamp. Lefevre 
turned aside a moment to look at a man whose 
breathing was labored and stertorous. The 
shaded light was turned upon him : an opiate 
had been given him to induce sleep ; it had 
performed its function, but, as if resenting its 
bondage, it was impishly twitching the man’s 
muscles and catching him by the throat, so 
that he choked and started. Dr. Lefevre raised 
the man’s eyelid to look at his eye : the up- 
turned eye stared out upon him, but the man 


MASTE/i OF ms FA TE. 


45 


slept on. He put his hand on the man’s fore- 
head (he had a beautiful hand — the hand of a 
born surgeon and healer — fine but firm, the 
expression of nervous force), and with thumb 
and finger stroked first his temples and then 
his neck. The spasmodic twitching ceased, 
and his breath came easy and regular. The 
house-doctor and the nurse looked at each 
other in admiration of this subtle skill, while 
Lefevre turned away and passed on. 

“ Where is the man } ” said he. 

“ Number Thirteen,” answered the house- 
doctor, leading the way. 

The lamp was set on the locker beside the 
bed of Thirteen, screens were placed round to 
create a seclusion amid the living, breathing 
silence of the ward, and Lefevre proceeded to 
examine the unconscious patient who had so 
strangely put himself in his hands. 

He was young and well-favored, and, it was 
evident from the firmness of his flesh, well- 
fed. Lefevre considered his features a moment, 
shook his head, and murmured, “ No ; 1 don’t 
think I’ve seen him before.” He turned to the 


46 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


nurse and inquired concerning the young man’s 
clothes : they were evidently those o’f a gentle- 
man, she said, — of ond, at least, who had plenty 
of money. He turned again to the young man 
He raised the left arm to feel the heart, but, 
contrary to his experience in such cases, the 
arm did not remain as he bent it, nor did the 
eyes open in obedience to the summons of the 
disturbed nerves. The breathing was scarcely 
perceptible, and the beating of the heart was 
faint. 

“ A strange case,” said Lefevre in a low 
voice to his young comrade — “ the strangest 
I’ve seen. He does not look a subject for this 
kind of thing, and yet he is in the extreme stage 
of hypnotism. You see.” And the doctor, by 
sundry tests and applications, showed the 
peculiar exhausted and contractive condition of 
the muscles. “ It is very curious.” 

“ Perhaps,” said the other, “ he has been 

and he hesitated. 

“ Been what ? ” asked Lefevre, turning on him 
his keen look. 

“ Enjoying himself.” 


MASTER OF ms FA TE. 


47 


'‘Having a debauch, you mean? No; I 
think not. There would then have probably 
been some reflex action of the nerves. This is 
not that kind of exhaustion ; and it is more 
than mere trance or catalepsy ; it seems the 
extremest suspensory condition, — and that in a 
young man of such apparent health is very 
remarkable. It will take a long time for him 
to recover in the ordinary way with food and 
sleep,” he continued, rather to himself than to 
his subordinates. “ He needs rousing, — a strong 
stimulant.” 

“ Shall I get some brandy, sir ? ” asked the 
nurse. 

“ Brandy ? No. That’s not the stimulant 
he needs.” 

He was silent for a little, moving the young 
man’s limbs, and touching certain muscles 
which his exact anatomical knowledge taught 
him to lay his finger un with unerring accuracy. 
The effect was startling and grotesque. As a 
galvanic current applied to the proper nerves 
and muscles of a dead body will produce ex- 
pressions and actions resembling those of life, 


48 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


SO the touch of Lefevre’s finger made the un- 
conscious young man scowl or smile or clench 
his fist according to the muscles impressed. 

“ The brain,” said Lefevre, “ seems quite 
sound, — perfectly passive, you see, but active 
in its passivity. You can leave us, nurse,” said 
he ; then, turning to the house-physician, he 
continued : “ I am convinced this is such a 
peculiar case as I have often imagined, but 
have never seen. This nervous-muscular sus- 
pension is complicated with some exhaustive 
influence. I want your assistance, and I ask 
for it like this, because it is necessary for my 
purpose that you should give it freely and 
without reserve; I am going to try the elec- 
trode.” 

This was a simple machine contrived by 
Lefevre, on the model of the electric cylinder 
of Du Bois-Reymond, and worked on the 
theory that the electricity stored in the human 
body can be driven out by the human will 
along a prepared channel into another human 
body. 

“ I understand,” said the assistant promptly. 


MAS7'EA^ OF HIS FATE. 


49 


He apprehended his chief’s meaning more fully 
than the reader can ; for he was deeply in- 
terested and fairly skilled in that strange annex 
of modern medical science which his chief called 
psycho-dynamics, and which old-fashioned prac- 
titioner's decline to recognize. 

“ Get me the machine and the insulating 
sheet,” said Lefevre. 

While his assistant was gone on his errand, 
Lefevre with his right hand gently stroked 
along the main lines of nerve and muscle in 
the upper part of his patient’s body ; and it was 
strange to note how the features and limbs lost 
a certain constriction and rigidity which it was 
manifest they had had only by their disappear- 
ance. When the house-physician returned, the 
sheet (a preparation of spun-glass invented by 
Lefevre) was drawn under the patient, and the 
machine, with its vessels of chemical mixture 
and its conducting wires, was placed close to 
the bed. The handles attached to the wires 
were put into the patient’s hands. 

“ Now,” said Lefevre, “ this is a trying exper- 
iment. Give me your hand — your left; you 


50 


MASTER OF MIS FA TE. 


know how to do ; yes, the other hand on the 
machine, with the fingers touching the chem- 
icals. When you feel strength —virtue, so to 
say — going out of you, don’t be alarmed : let it 
go ; use no effort of the will to keep it back, or 
we shall probably fail.” 

“ I understand,” repeated the assistant. 

Then, holding his hand, — closely, but not so 
as to constrain the muscles, — Lefevre put his 
own left on the machine according to the 
direction he had given his assistant, — with his 
fingers, that is, dipping into the chemicals from 
plates in the bottom of which the wires con- 
ducted to the patient’s hands. A shiver ran 
through the frame of both Lefevre and his 
companion, a convulsive shudder passed upon 
the unconscious body, and — a strange cry rang 
out upon the silence of the ward, and Lefevre 
withdrew his hands. He and the house-phy- 
sician looked at each other pale and shaken. 
The nurse came running at the cry. Lefevre 
looked out beyond the screen to reassure her, 
and saw in the dim red reflection of the fire- 
light a sight which struck him gruesomely, 


MASTER OF ms FATE. 5 1 

used though he was to hospital sights; all 
about the ward pale scared figures were sitting 
up in bed, like corpses suddenly raised from 
the dead. He bent over his patient, who pres- 
ently opened his eyes and stared at him. 

“ Get some brandy and milk,” said Lefevre 
to his companion. 

“ Who Where am I ? ” murmured the 
patient in a faint voice. 

“ I am Dr. Lefevre, and this is St. James's 
hospital.” 

“ Doctor } — hospital } — oh. I’m dreaming ! ” 
murmured the patient. 

“ We’ll talk about that when you have taken 
some of this,” said Lefevre, as the house- 
physician reappeared with the nurse, bearing 
the brandy and milk. 

Lefevre presently told him how he had been 
found in the train, and taken for dead till the 
card — “ this card,” said he, taking it from the 
top of the locker — was discovered on him. 
The young man listened in open amazement, 
and looked at the card. 

“ I know nothing of this ! ” said he. “ I 


52 


MASTER OP HIS FATE 


never saw the card before ! I never heard 
your name or the hospital’s till a minute ago.” 

“ Your case was strange before,” said Le- 
fevre ; “ this makes it stranger. Who jour- 
neyed with you ? ” 

“ A man, — a nice, strange, oldish fellow in a 
fur coat.” And the young man wished to enter 
upon a narrative, when the doctor interrupted 
him. 

“ You’re not well enough to talk much now. 
Tell me to-morrow all about it.” 

The doctor returned home, his imagination 
occupied with the vision of a train rushing at 
express speed over the metals, and of a com- 
partment in the train in which a young man 
reclined under the spell of an old man. The 
young man’s face he saw clearly, but the old 
man’s evaded him like a dream, and yet he felt 
he ought to know one who knew the peculiar 
repute of the St. James’s Hospital. 

Next day the young man told his story, 
which was in effect as follows : He was a subal- 
tern in a dragoon regiment stationed in Bright- 
on. On Sunday afternoon he had set out for 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


53 


London on several days’ leave. He had taken 
a seat in a smoking-carriage, and was prepar- 
ing to make himself comfortable with a novel 
and a cigar, when an elderly gentleman, who 
looked like a foreigner, came in as the train 
was about to move. He particularly observed 
the man from the first, because, though it was 
a pleasant spring day, he looked pinched and 
shrunken with cold in his great fur overcoat, 
and because he had remarked him standing on 
the platform and scrutinizing the passengers 
hurrying into the train. The gentleman sat 
down in the seat opposite the young officer, and 
drew his fur wrap close about him. The young 
officer could not keep his eyes off him, and he 
noted that his features seemed worn, thin and 
arid, as by passage through terrific peril, — as if 
he had been travelling for many days without 
sleep and without food, straining forward to a 
goal of safety, sick both in stomach and heart, 
— as if he had been rushing, like the maniac of 
the Gospel, through dry places, seeking rest 
and finding none. His hair, which should have 
been black, looked lustreless and bleached, and 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


54 

his skin seemed as if his blood had lost all 
color and generosity, as if nothing but serum 
flowed in his veins. His eyes alone did not 
look bloodless ; they were weary and extra v- 
asated, as from anxious watching. The young 
officer’s compassion went out to the stranger ; 
for he thought he must be a conspirator, flee- 
ing probably from the infamous tyranny of 
Russian rule. But presently he spoke in such 
good English that the idea of his being a Rus- 
sian faded away. 

“ Excuse the liberty I take/’ said he, with a 
singularly winning smile ; “ but let me advise 
you not to smoke that cigar. I have a pecu- 
liarly sensitive nose for tobacco, and my nose 
informs me that your cigar, though good as 
cigars go, is not fit for you to smoke.” 

The young officer was surprised that he was 
rather charmed than offended by this imperti- 
nence. 

“ Let me offer you one of these instead,” 
said the strange gentleman ; “ we call them — I 
won’t trouble you with the Spanish name — but 
in English it means ‘ Joys of Spain. ’ ” 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


55 


The officer took and thanked him for a “ Joy 
of Spain,” and found the flavor and aroma so 
excellent that, to use his own phrase, he could 
have eaten it. He asked the stranger what in 
particular was his objection to the other cigar. 

“ This objection,” said he, “ which is common 
to all ill-prepared tobaccos, that it lowers the 
vital force. You don’t feel that yet, because 
you are young and healthy, and gifted with a 
superabundance of fine vitality ; but you may 
by smoking one bad cigar bring the time a day 
nearer when you must feel it. And even now 
it would take a little off the keen edge of the 
appetite for pleasure. How little,” said he, “ do 
we understand how to keep ourselves in condi- 
tion for the complete enjoyment of life! You, 
I suppose, are about to take your pleasure in 
town, and instead of judiciously tickling and 
stimulating your nerves for the complete fulfil- 
ment of the pleasures you contemplate, you 
begin — you were beginning, I mean, with your 
own cigar — to dull and stupefy them. Don’t 
you see how foolish that is ? ” 

The young officer admitted that it was very 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


56 

foolish and very true ; and they talked on thus, 
the elder exercising a charm over the younger 
such as he had never known before in the 
society of any man. In a quarter of an hour 
the young man felt as if he had known and 
trusted and loved his neighbor all his life ; he 
felt, he confessed, so strongly attracted that he 
could have hugged him. He told him about 
his family, and showed him the innermost 
secrets of his heart ; and all the while he 
smoked the delicious Joy of Spain,” and felt 
more and more enthralled and fascinated by 
the stranger’s eyes, which, as he talked, light- 
ened and glowed more and more as their glance 
played caressingly about him. He was begin- 
ning to wonder at that, when with some em- 
phatic phrase the stranger laid his fingers on 
his knee, upon which a thrill shot through him 
as if a woman had touched him. He looked in 
the stranger’s face, and the wonderful eyes 
seemed to search to the root of his being, and 
to draw the soul out of him. He had a flying 
thought — “ Can it be a woman, after all, in this 


MASTER OF HIS FANE. 


57 


strange shape ? ” and he knew no more . . . till 
he woke in the hospital bed. 

That was the patient s story. 

“ Just look over your property here,” said the 
doctor. “ Have you lost anything.^ ” 

The young man turned over his watch and 
the contents of his purse, and answered that he 
had lost nothing. 

“Strange — strange ! ” said Lefevre — “very 
strange ! And the card — of course the stranger 
must have put it in your pocket.” 

“ Which would seem to imply,” said the 
young man, “ that he know^s something of the 
hospital.” 

“ Well, said Lefevre, “ we must see what can 
be done to clear the mystery up.” 

“ Some of those newspaper-men have been 
here,” said the house-physician, when they had 
left the ward, “ and they will be sure to call 
again before the day is out. Shall I tell them 
anything of this } ” 

“ Certainly,” said Lefevre. “ Publicity may 
help us to discover this amazing stranger,” 


58 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


“ Do you quite believe the story? ” asked the 
house-physician. 

“ I don’t disbelieve it.” 

“ But what did the stranger do to put him in 
that condition, which seems something more 
than hypnotism ? ” 

“ Ah,” said Lefevre, “ I don’t yet understand 
it ; but there are forces in Nature which few 
can comprehend, and which only one here and 
there can control and use.” 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


59 


CHAPTER III. 

“ M. DOLARO.” 

Next day men talked, newspaper in hand, at 
the breakfast-table, in the early trains, omni- 
buses, and tramcars, of the singular railway 
outrage. It was clear its purpose was not 
robbery. What, then, did it mean 1 Some — 
probably most — declared it was very plain 
what it meant ; while others, — ^the few, — after 
much argument, confessed themselves quite 
mystified. 

The police, too, were not idle. They made 
inquiries and took notes here and there. They 
discovered that the five o’clock train made but 
two pauses on its journey to London — at Croy- 
don and at Clapham Junction. At neither of 
those places could a man in a fur coat be 
heard of as having descended from the train ; 


6o 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


and yet it was manifest that he did not arrive 
at Grosvenor Road, where tickets were taken. 
After persistent and wider inquiries, however, 
at Clapham Junction (which was the most 
likely point of departure), a cabman was found 
who remembered having taken up a fare — 
a gentleman in a fur coat — about the hour 
indicated. He particularly remarked the gen- 
tleman, because he looked odd and foreign and 
half tipsy (that was how he seemed to him), 
because he was wrapped up “ enough for 
Father Christmas,” and because he asked to be 
driven such a long way — to a well-known hotel 
near the Crystal Palace, where “ foreign gents ” 
were fond of staying. Being asked what in 
particular had made him think the gentleman 
a foreigner, cabby could not exactly say ; he 
believed, however, it was his coat and his eyes. 
Of his face he saw little or nothing, it was 
so muffled up ; yet his tongue was English 
enough. 

Inquiry was then pushed on to the hotel 
named by the cabman. A gentleman in a fur 
coat had certainly arrived there the evening 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


6 


before, but no one had seen anything of him 
after his arrival. He had taken dinner in his 
private sitting-room, and had then paid his bill, 
because, he said, he must be gone early in the 
morning. About half an hour ' after dinner, 
when a waiter cleared the things away, he had 
gone to his room, and next morning he had 
left the hotel soon after dawn. Boots, half 
asleep, had seen him walk away, bag in hand, 
wrapped in his greatcoat, — walk away, it would 
seem, and dissolve into the mist of the morning, 
for from that point no further trace could be 
got of him. No such figure as his had been 
seen on any of the roads leading from the 
hotel, either by the early milkman, or by the 
belated coffee-stall keeper, or night cabman. 
Being asked what name the gentleman had 
given at the hotel, the book-keeper showed her 
record, with the equivocal name of “ M. Do- 
laro.” The name might be Italian or Spanish, 
— or English or American for that matter, — 
and the initial “ M ” might be French or any- 
thing in the world. 

In the meantime Dr. Lefevre had been pon- 


62 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


dering the details of the affair, and noting the 
aspects of his patient s condition ; but the 
more he noted and pondered, the more con- 
torted and inexplicable did the mystery become. 
His understanding boggled at its very first 
notes. It was almost unheard of that a young 
man of his patient’s strong and healthy consti- 
tution and temper should be hypnotized or 
mesmerized at all, much less hypnotized to the 
verge of dissolution ; and it was unprecedented 
that even a weak, hysterical subject should, 
after being unhypnotized, remain so long in 
prostrate exhaustion. Then, suppose these cir- 
cumstances of the case were ordinary, there 
arose this question, which refused to be solved : 
Since it was ridiculous to suppose that the 
hypnotization was a wanton experiment, and 
since it had not been for the sake of robbery, 
what had been its object 

The interest of the case was emphasized and 
enlarged by an article in “ The Daily Tele- 
graph,” in which was called to mind the singu- 
lar story in its Paris correspondence a day or 
two before, of the young woman in the Hotel- 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


63 

Dieu, which Lefevre had forgotten. dlie 
writer remarked on the points of similarity 
which the case in the Brighton train bore to 
that of the Paris pavement; insisted on the 
probable identity of the man in the fur coat 
with the man in the cloak ; and appealed to 
Dr. Lefevre to explain the mystery, and to the 
police to find the man “ who has alarmed the 
civilized world by a new form of outrage.” 

Lefevre was piqued by that article, and he 
went to see his patient day after day, in the con- 
stant hope of finding a solution of the puzzle 
that perplexed him. The direction in which he 
looked for light will be best suggested by re- 
marking what were his peculiar theory and 
practice. Lefevre was not a materialistic phy- 
sician ; indeed, in the opinion of many of his 
brethren, he erred on the other side, and was 
too much inclined to mysticism. It may at 
least be said that he had an open mind, and a 
modest estimate of the discoveries of modern 
medical science. He had perceived while still 
a young man (he was now about forty) that all 
medical practice — as distinct from surgical — is 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


64 

inexact and empirical, that, like English com- 
mon law, it is based merely on custom, and a 
narrow range of experience ; and he had there- 
fore argued that a wider experience and re- 
search, especially among decaying nations, 
might lead to the discovery of a guiding princi- 
ple in pathology. That conviction had taken 
him as medical officer to Egypt and India, 
where, amid the relics of civilizations half as 
old as time, he found traditions of a great 
scientific practice; and thence it had brought 
him back to study such foreign medical writers 
as Du Bois-Reymond, Nobili, Matteucci, and 
Muller, and to observe the method of the 
famous physicians of the Salpetriere. Like 
the great Charbon, he made nervous and hys- 
terical disorders his specialty, in the treatment 
of which he was much given to the use of 
electricity. He had very pronounced “ views,” 
though he seldom troubled his brethren with 
them ; for he was not of those who can hold a 
belief firmly only if it is also held by others. 

More than a week had passed without dis- 
covery or promise of light, when one afternoon 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 65 

he went to the hospital resolved to compass 
some explanation. 

He walked at once, on entering the ward, to 
tlie bedside of his puzzling patient, who still 
lay limp as a dish-clout and drowsy as a sloth. 
He tested — as he had done almost daily — his 
nervous and respiratory powers with the exact 
instruments adapted for the. purpose, and then, 
still unenlightened, he questioned him closely 
about his sensations. The young officer an- 
swered him with tolerable intelligence. 

“ I feel,” he ended with saying, “ as if all my 
energy had evaporated, — and I used to have no 
end, — just as a spirit evaporates if it is left open 
to the air.” 

The saying struck Lefevre mightily. “Ener- 
gy ” stood then to Lefevre as an almost con- 
vertible term for “ electricity,” and his success- 
ful experiments with electricity had opened up 
to him a vast field of conjecture, into which, on 
the smallest inflaming hint, he was wont to 
make an excursion. Such a hint was the say- 
ing of the young officer now, and, as he walked 

away, he found himself, as it were, knocking at 
5 


66 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


the door of a great discovery. But the door 
did not open on that summons, and he resolved 
straightway to discuss the subject with Julius 
Courtney, who, though an amateur, had about 
as complete a knowledge of it as himself, and 
who could bring to bear, he believed, a finer 
intelligence. 

He first sought Julius at the Hyacinth Club, 
where he frequently spent the afternoon. Fail- 
ing to find him there, he inquired for him at 
his chambers in the Albany. Hearing nothing 
of him there, and the ardor of his quest having 
cooled a little, he stepped out across the way to 
his own home in Savile Row. 

There he found a note from his mother, with 
a touch of mystery in its wording. She said 
she wanted very much to have a serious con- 
versation with him ; she had been expecting 
for days to see him, and she begged him to go 
that evening to dinner if he could. “Julius,’' 
said she, “ will be here, and one or two others.” 

The mention of Julius as a visitor at his 
mother’s house reminded him of his promise to 
that lady to find out how the young man was 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 57 

connected : engrossed as he had been with his 
strange case, he had almost forgotten the prom- 
ise, and he had done nothing to fulfil it but 
tap ineffectually for admission to his friend’s 
confidence. He therefore considered with some 
anxiety what he should do, for Lady Lefevre 
could on occasion be exacting and severe with 
her son. He concluded nothing could be done 
before dinner, but he went prepared to be 
questioned and perhaps rated. He was pleased 
to find that his mother seemed to have for- 
gotten his promise as much as he had, and to 
see her in the best of spirits with a tableful of 
company. 

“ Oh, you have come,” said she, presenting 
her cheek to her son ; “ I thought that after all 
you might be detained by that mysterious case 
you have at the hospital. Here’s Dr. Rippon 
— and Julius too— dying to hear all about 
it ; ” but she gave no hint of the serious con- 
versation which she said in her note she 
desired. 

“Not I, Lady Lefevre,” Julius protested. 
“ I don’t like medical revelations ; they make 


58 MASTER OF HTS FATE. 

me feel as if I were sitting at the confessional of 
mankind.” 

Noting by the way that Julius and his sister 
seemed much taken up with each other, and 
that Julius, while as fascinating as ever, and as 
ready and apt and intelligent of speech, seemed 
somewhat more chastened in manner and less 
effervescent in health, — like a fire of coal that 
has spent its gas and settled into a steady glow 
of heat, — he turned to Dr Rippon, a tall, thin 
old gentleman of over seventy, but who yet had 
a keen tongue, and a shrewd, critical eye. He 
had been an intimate friend of the elder 
Lefevre, and the son greeted him with respect 
and affection. 

“ Who is the gentleman ? ” said Dr. Rippon, 
aside, when their greeting was over. “ It does 
an old man’s heart good to see and hear him,” 
and the old doctor straightened himself. “ But 
he’ll get old too; that’s the sad thing, from my 
point of view, that such beauty of person and 
swift intelligence of mind must grow old and 
withered, and slow and dull. What did you 
say his name is, John 't ” 


MASTE/^ OE HIS EATE. 69 

“ His name is Courtney — Julius Courtney,” 
said Lefevre. 

“ Courtney,” mused the old man, stroking 
his eyebrow ; “ I once knew a man of that 
name, or, rather, who took that name. I 
wonder if this friend of yours is of the same 
family ; he is not unlike the man I knew.” 

“ Oh,” said Lefevre, immediately interested, 

“ he may be of the same family, but I don’t 
know anything of his relations. Who was the 
man, may I ask, that you knew 1 ” 

“ Well,” said the old gentleman, settling down 
to a story, which Lefevre was sure would be 
full of interest and contemporary allusion, for 
the old physician had in his time seen many- 
men and many things — “ it is a romantic story 
in its way.” 

He was on the point of beginning it when 
dinner was announced. 

“ I should like to hear the story when we 
return to the drawing-room,” said Lefevre. 

Over dinner, Lefevre was beset with inquiries 
about his mysterious case: — Was the young 
man better ? Had he been very ill ? Was he 


70 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


handsome ? What had the foreign-looking 
stranger done to him ? and for what purpose 
had he done it ? These questions were mostly 
ignorant and thoughtless, and Lefevre either 
parried them or answered them with great 
reserve. When the ladies retired from table, 
however, more particular and curious queries 
were pressed upon him as to the real character 
of the outrage upon the young man. He 
replied that he had not yet discovered, though 
he believed he was getting “ warm.” 

“ Is it fair,” said Julius, “ to ask you in what 
direction you are looking for an explanation or 
revelation } ” 

“ Oh, quite fair,” said Lefevre, welcoming 
the question. “To put it in a word, I look 
to electricity , — animal electricity. I have been 
for some time working round, and I hope grad- 
ually getting nearer, a scientific secret of enor- 
mous— of transcendent value. Can you conceive, 
Julius, of a universal principle in Nature being 
got so under control as to form a universal basis 
of cure ? ” 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


71 


Can I conceive?” said Julius. “And is 
that electricity too ? ” 

“ I hope to find it is.” 

“Oh, how slow!” exclaimed Julius, — “oh, 
how slow you professional scientific men 
become I You begin to run on tram-lines, and 
you can’t get off them I Why fix yourself to 
call this principle you’re seeking for ‘elec- 
tricity ’ ? It will probably restrict your inquiry, 
and hamper you in several ways. I would 
declare to every scientific man, ‘ Unless you 
become as a little child or a poet, you will dis- 
cover no great truth 1 ’ Setting aside your bias 
towards what you. call ‘electricity,’ you are 
really hoping to discover something that was 
discovered or divined thousands of years ago ! 
Some have called it ‘ od ’ — an ‘ imponderable 
fluid ’ — as you know ; you and others wish to 
call it ‘electricity.’ I prefer to call it ‘ the spirit 
of life, — a name simple, dignified, and expres- 
sive I ’ 

“ It has the disadvantage of being poetic,” 
said Dr. Rippon, with grave irony ; “ and doc- 


72 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


tors don’t like poetry mixed up with their 
science.’^ 

“ It poetic,” admitted Julius, regarding the 
old doctor with interest, “ and therefore it is 
intelligible. The spirit of life is electric and 
elective, and it is ‘ imponderable ’ : it can neither 
be weighed nor measured ! It flows and thrills 
in the nerves of men and women, animals and 
plants, throughout the whole of Nature! It 
connects the whole round of the Cosmos by 
one glowing, teasing, agonizing principle of 
being, and makes us and beasts and trees and 
flowers all kindred ! ” 

“ That is all very beautiful and fresh,” said 
Lefevre, “ but ” 

“ But,” interrupted Julius, “it is not a new 
truth : the poet divined it ages ago ! Buddha, 
thousands of years ago, perceived it, and taught 
that ‘ all life is linked and kin ; ’ so did • the 
Egyptians and the Greeks, when they wor- 
shipped the principle of life everywhere ; and 
so did our own barbaric ancestors, when the 
woods — the wonderful, mystic woods ! — were 
their temples. Life — the spirit of life I — is 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


73 


always beautiful ; always to be desired and wor- 
shipped ! ” 

“ Yes,” said old Dr. Rippon, who had listened 
to this astonishing rhapsody with evident inter- 
est, with sympathetic and intelligent eye; “ but 
a time will come even to you, when death will 
appear more beautiful and friendly and desira- 
ble than life/* 

Courtney was silent, and looked for a second 
or two deadly sick. He cast a searching eye 
on Dr. Rippon. 

“ That’s the one thought,” said he, “that 
makes me sometimes feel as if I were already 
under the horror of the shade. It’s not that I 
am afraid of dying — of merely ceasing to live ; 
it is that life may cease to be delightful and 
friendly, and become an intolerable, decaying 
burden.” 

He filled a glass with Burgundy, and set him- 
self attentively to drink it, lingering on the 
bouquet and the flavor. Lefevre beheld him 
with surprise, for he had never before seen Julius 
take wine : he was wont to say that converse 


74 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


with good company was intoxicating enough 
for him. 

“ Why, Julius,” said Lefevre, “ that’s a new 
experience you are trying, — is it not ? ” 

Julius looked embarrassed an instant, and 
then replied, “ I have begun it very recently. I 
did not think it wise to postpone the experience 
till it might become an absolute necessity.” 

Old Dr. Rippon watched him empty the 
glass with a musing eye. “ ‘ I sought in mine 
heart,’ ” said he, gravely quoting, “ ‘ to give my- 
self unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with 
wisdom.’ ” 

“ True,” said Julius, considering him closely. 
But, for completeness’ sake, you ought to quote 
also, ‘Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept 
not from them ; I withheld not my heart from 
any joy.’ ” 

Lefevre looked from the one to the other in 
some darkness of perplexity. 

“You appear, John,” said the old doctor 
with a smile, “ not to know one of the oldest 
and greatest of books : you will find it included 
in your Bible. Mr. Courtney clearly knows it 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


75 

I should not be surprised to hear he had 
adopted its philosophy of ‘ wisdom and madness 
and folly.’” 

“ Surely you cannot say,” remarked Julius, 
“ that the writer of that book had what is called 
a ‘ philosophy.’ He was moved by an irresist- 
ible impulse, of which he gives you the expla- 
nation when he uses that magnificent sentence 
about having ‘ the world set in his heart’ ” 

“Yes,” said the old doctor, in a subdued, 
backward voice, regarding Julius with the con- 
templative eyes of memory. “ You will, I hope, 
forgive me when I say that you remind me 
very much of a gentleman who took the name 
of Courtney. I knew him years ago : was he 
a relation of yours, I wonder ? ” 

Possibly,” said Julius, seeming scarcely 
interested ; “ though the name of Courtney, I 
believe, is not very uncommon.” Then, turn- 
ing to Lefevre, he said, “ I hope you don’t 
think I wish to make light of your grand idea. 

I only mean that you must widen your view, if 
you would work it out to success.” 

With that Lefevre became more curious to 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


76 

hear Dr. Rippon’s story. So when they wnet 
to the drawing-room he got the old gentleman 
into a secluded corner, and reminded him of 
his promise. 

“ Yes,” said the doctor, “it is a romantic story. 
About forty years ago, — yes, about forty : it was 
immediately after the fall of Louis Philippe, — I 
went with my friend Lord Rokeby to Madrid. 
He went as ambassador, and I as his physician. 
There was then at the Spanish Court a very 
handsome hidalgo, Don Hernando — I forget all 
his names, but his surname was De Sandoval. 
He was of the bluest blood in Spain, and a 
marquis, but poor as a church mouse. He had 
a great reputation for gallant adventures and 
for mysterious scientific studies. On the last 
ground I sought and cultivated his acquaint- 
ance. But he was a proud, reserved person, 
and I could never quite make out what his 
studies were, except that he read a great deal, 
and believed firmly in the Arabic philosophers 
and alchemists of the middle ages ; and he 
would sometimes talk with the same sort of 
rhapsodical mysticism as this young man de- 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


77 


lights you with. We did not have much 
opportunity for developing an intimacy in any 
case ; for he fell in love with the daughter of 
our Chief Secretary of Legation, a bright, 
lovely English girl, and that ended disastrously 
for his position in Madrid. He made his pro- 
posals to her father, and had them refused; 
chiefly, I believe, on account of his loose reputa- 
tion. The girl, too, was the heiress of an 
uncle’s property on this curious condition, it 
appeared, — that whoever should marry her 
should take the uncle’s name of Courhiey. 
Don Hernando and the young lady disappeared ; 
they were married, and he took the name of 
Courtney, and was forbidden to return to 
Madrid. He and his wife settled in Paris, w^here 
I used to meet them frequently; then they 
travelled, I believe, and I lost sight of them. I 
returned to Paris on a visit some few years ago, 
and I asked an old friend about the Courtneys ; 
he believed they were both dead, though he 
could give me no certain news about them.” 

“ Supposing,” said Lefevre, “ that this Julius 
were their son, do you know of any reason why 


78 MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 

he should be reserved about his parentage ? ’’ 

“ No,” said the old man, “ no ; — unless it be 
that Hernando was not episcopal in his affec- 
tions ; but I should think the young man is 
scarcely Puritan enough to be ashamed of 
that” 

Lefevre and the old man both looked round 
for Julius. They caught sight of him and 
Leonora Lefevre standing one on either side of 
a window, with their eyes fixed upon each other. 

“ The young lady,” said the old doctor, 
“ seems much taken up with him.” 

“ Yes,” said Lefevre; “ and she’s my sister.” 

“ Ah,” said the old doctor; “ I fear my remark 
was rather unreserved.” 

“ It is true,” said Lefevre. 

He left Dr. Rippon, to seek his mother. He 
found her excited and warm, and without a 
word to spare for him. 

“You wanted,” said he, “some serious talk 
with me, mother } ” 

“ Oh, yes,” said she ; “ but I can’t talk seri- 
ously now : I can scarcely talk at all. But do 
you see how Nora and Julius are taken up with 


MASTER OR HIS FA TE. 


79 


each other ? I never before saw such a pair of 
moonstruck mortals ! I believe I have heard 
of the moon having a magnetic influence on 
people : do you think it has ? But he is a 
charming man!” — glancing towards Julius — 
“ I’m more than half in love with him myself. 
Now I must go. Come quietly one afternoon, 
and then we can talk.” 

Her son abstained from recounting, as he 
had proposed to himself, what he had heard 
from Dr. Rippon : he would reserve it for the 
quiet afternoon. He took his leave almost 
immediately, bearing with him a deep impres- 
sion — like a strongly bitten etching wrought 
on his memory — of his last glimpse of the draw- 
ing-room : Nora and Julius sat talking across 
a small table, and the tall, pale, gaunt figure of 
Dr. Rippon approaching and stooping between 
them. It seemed a sinister reminder of the 
words the old doctor had addressed to Julius, — 
“ A time will come when death will appear more 
beautiful and friendly and desirable than life ! ” 


8o 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE MAN OF THE CROWD. 

In a few days Dr. Lefevre found a quiet 
afternoon, and went and told his mother the 
story of the Spanish marquis which he had got 
from Dr. Rippon. She hailed the story with 
delight. Courtney was a fascinating figure to 
her before : it needed but that to clothe him with 
a complete romantic heroism ; for, of course, 
she did not doubt that he was the son of the 
Spanish grandee. She wished to put it to him 
at once whether he was not, but she was dis- 
suaded by her son from mentioning the matter 
yet to either Julius or her daughter. 

“ If he wishes,” said Lefevre, “ to keep it 
secret for some reason, it would be an imper- 
tinence to speak about it. We shall, however, 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


have a perfect right to ask him about himself if 
his attentions to Nora go on.’ 

Soon afterwards (it was really a fortnight ; but 
in a busy life day melts into day with amazing 
rapidity)^ Lefevre was surprised at dinner, and 
somewhat irritated, by a letter from his mother. 
She wrote that they had seen nothing of Julius 
Courtney for three or four days, — which was 
singular, since for the past three or four weeks 
he had been a daily visitor ; latterly he had 
begun to look fagged and ill, and it was possible 
he was confined to his room, — though, after all, 
that was scarcely likely, for he had not answered 
a note of inquiry which she had sent. She 
begged her son to call at his chambers, the more 
so as Nora was pining in Julius’s absence to a 
degree which made her mother very anxious. 

With professional suspicion Lefevre told 
himself that if Julius, with his magnificent 
health, was fallen ill, it must be for some out- 
rageous reason. But even if he was ill, he need 
not be unmannerly : he might have let his 
friends who had been in the habit of seeing 
him daily know what had come to him. Was 


82 


MASTER OF MIS FATE. 


it possible, the doctor thought, that he was 
repenting of having given Nora and her 
mother so much cause to take his assiduous 
attentions seriously? He resolved to see Julius 
at once, if he were at his chambers. 

He left his wine unfinished (to the delight of 
his grave and silent man in black), hastily took 
his hat from its peg in the hall, and passed out 
into the street, while his man held the door 
open. In two minutes he had passed the 
northern gateway of the Albany, which, as 
most people know, is just at the southern end 
of Savile Row. Courtney’s door was speedily 
opened in response to his peremptory sum- 
mons. 

“ Is your master at home, Jenkins?” asked 
Lefevre of the well-dressed serving-man, who 
looked distinguished enough to be master 
himself. 

“ No, doctor,” answered Jenkins ; “ he is 
not.” 

“ Gone out,” said Lefevre, “ to the club or to 
dinner, I suppose ? ” 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 83 

“ No, doctor,” repeated Jenkins ; “ he is not. 
He went away four days ago.” 

“ Went away ! ” exclaimed Lefevre. 

“ He do sometimes go away by himself, sir. 
He is so fond of the country, and he likes to 
be by himself. It is the only thing that do 
him good.” 

“ Becomes solitary, does he } ” said Lefevre. 
“ Yes ; intelligent, impulsive persons like him, 
that live at high pressure, often have black 
moods.’' That was not quite what he meant, 
but it was enough for Jenkins. 

“ Yes, sir,” said Jenkins ; “ he do sometimes 
have 'em black. He don’t seem to take no 
pride in himself, as he do usual — don’t seem to 
care somehow if he look a gentleman or a 
common man.” 

“ But your master, Jenkins,” said Lefevre, 
“ can never look a common man." 

“ No, sir,” said Jenkins ; “ he cannot, what- 
ever he do.” 

“ He is gone into the country, then } ” asked 
Lefevre. 


84 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


“ Yes, sir ; I packed his small portmantew 
for him four days ago.” 

“ And where is he gone } He told you, I 
suppose ? ” 

“ No, sir ; he do not usual tell me when he 
is like that” 

It did not seem possible to learn anything 
from Jenkins, in spite of the apparent intimacy 
of his conversation, so Lefevre left him, and 
returned to his own house. He had sat but a 
little while in his laboratory (where he had 
been occupying his small intervals of leisure 
lately in electrical studies and experiments) 
when, as chance would have it, the last post 
brought him a note from Dr. Rippon. Its 
purport was curious. 

“ / thinkl' the letter ran, “ you were suffi- 
ciently interested in the story I told you some 
week or two ago about one Hernando Courtney^ 
not to be bored by a note on the same subject. 
Last night I accompanied my daughter and son- 
in-law to the Lyceum Theatre. On coming out 
we had to walk down Wellingto7i Street into the 
Strand to find our carriage, and in the surging 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 85 

crowd about there I am almost sure I saw the 
Herna7ido Courtney whom I believed to be dead, 
Aut Courtney aut Diabolus. / have never 
heard satisfactory evidence of his death, and 
I should very much like to know if he is really 
still alive and in Londo^i. It has occurred to me 
that, considering the intimacy of yourself and 
your family with the gentleman who was made 
known to me at your mother s house by the name 
of Courtfiey, you may have heard by now the 
rights of the case. If you have any news, I 
shall be glad to share it with you! 

Considering this in association with the 
absence of Julius, Lefevre found his wits be- 
coming involved in a puzzle. He could not 
settle to work, so he put on overcoat and hat, 
and sallied out again. He had no fixed pur- 
pose : he only felt the necessity of motion to 
resolve hinself back into his normal calm. The 
air was keen from the east. May, which had 
opened with such wanton warmth and seduc- 
tiveness, turned a cold shoulder on the world as 
she took herself off. It was long since he had 
indulged in an evening walk in the lamp-lit 


86 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


streets, so he stepped out eastward against the 
shrewd wind. Insensibly his attention forsook 
the busy and anxious present, and slipped back 
to the days of golden and romantic youth, when 
the crowded nocturnal streets were full of the 
mystery of life. He recalled the sensations of 
those days — the sharp doubts of self, the fre- 
quent strong desires to drink deep of all that 
life had to offer, and the painful recoils from 
temptation, which he felt would ruin, if yielded 
to, his hope of himself, and his ambition of 
filling a worthy place among men. 

Thus musing, he walked on, taking, without 
noting it, the most frequented turnings, and 
soon he found himself in the Strand. It was 
that middle time of evening, after the theatres 
and restaurants have sucked in their crowds^ 
when the frequenters of the streets have some 
reserve in their vivacity, before reckless roister- 
ers have begun to taste the lees of pleasure, 
and to shout and jostle on the pavements. He 
was walking on the side of the way next the 
river, when, near the Adelphi, he became aware 
of a man before him, wearing a slouch-hat and 


MASTEJi OF ms FATE, 


87 


a greatcoat — a man who appeared to choose the 
densest part of the throng, to prefer to be 
rubbed against and hustled rather than not. 
There was something about the man which 
held Lefevre’s attention and roused his curiosity 
— something in the swing of his gait and the 
set of his shoulders. The man, too, seemed 
urged on by a singular haste, which permitted 
him to be the slowest and easiest of passengers 
in the thick of the crowd, but carried him 
swiftly over the. less frequented parts of the 
pavement. The doctor began to wonder if he 
was a pickpocket, and to look about for the 
watchful eye of a policeman. He kept close 
behind him past the door of the Strand Theatre, 
when the throng became slacker, and the man 
turned quickly about and returned the way he 
had come. Then Lefevre had a glimpse of his 
face, — the merest passing glimpse, but it made 
him pause and ask himself where he had seen 
it before. A dark, foreign-looking, man, with a 
haggard appeal in his eye : he tried to find the 
place of such a figure in his memory, but for 
the time he tried in vain. 


88 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


Before the doctor recovered himself the man 
was well past, and disappearing in the throng. 
He hurried after, determined to overtake him, 
and to make a full and satisfying perusal of his 
face and figure. He found that difficult, how- 
ever, because of the man’s singular style of pro- 
gression. To maintain an even pace for him- 
self, moreover, Lefevre had to walk very much 
in the roadway, the dangers of which, from 
passing cabs and omnibuses, forbade his fixing 
his attention on the man alone. Yet he was 
more and more piqued to look him in the face ; 
for the longer he followed him the more he was 
struck with the oddity of his conduct. He had 
already noted how he hurried over the empty 
spaces of pavement and lingered sinuously 
in the thronged parts ; he now remarked further 
that those who came into immediate contact 
with him (and they were mostly young people 
who were to be met with at that season of the 
night) glanced sharply at him, as if they had 
experienced some suspicious sensation, and 
seemed inclined to remonstrate, till they looked 
in his face, 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, gg 

Lefevre could not arrive at a clear front view 
till, by Charing Cross Station, the man turned 
on the kerb to look after a handsome youth 
who crossed before him, and passed over the 
road. Then the doctor saw the face in the 
light of a street-lamp, and the sight sent the 
blood in a gush from his heart. It was a dark 
hairless face, terribly blanched and emaciated, 
as if by years of darkness and prison, with the 
impress of age and death, but yet with a wist- 
ful light in the eyes, and a firm sensuousness 
about the mouth that betrayed a considerable 
interest in life. He turned his eyes away an 
instant, to bring memory and association to 
bear. When he looked again the man was 
moving away. At once recognition rushed 
upon him like a wave of light. The terribly 
worn, ghastly features, resolved themselves into 
a kind of death-mask of J ulius ! The wave 
recoiled and smote him again. Who could the 
man be, therefore, who was so like Julius, and 
yet was not Julius — who could he be but 
Julius’s father, — that Hernando Courtney whom 


90 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


Dr. Rippon believed he had seen the evening 
before 1 

Here was a coil to unravel! Julius’s father 
— the Spanish marquis that was — supposed to 
be dead, but yet wandering in singular fashion 
about the London streets, clearly not desiring, 
much less courting, opportunities of being 
recognized; Julius not caring to speak of his 
father, apparently ignoring his continued exist- 
ence, and yet apparently knowing enough of 
his movements to avoid him when he came to 
London by suddenly removing “ into the coun- 
try ” without leaving his address. What was 
the meaning of so much mystery 1 Crime } 
debt political intrigue or, what. 

The mysterious Hernando went on his way^ . 
by the southern sweep of Trafalgar Square 
and Cockspur Street, to the Haymarket, and 
Lefevre followed with attention and curiosity 
bent on him, but yet with so little thought of 
playing spy that, if Hernando had gone any 
other way or had returned along the Strand, he 
would probably have let him go. And as they 
went on, the doctor could not but note, as 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


91 


before, how the object of his curiosity lingered 
wherever there was a press of people, whether 
on the pavement or on a refuge at a crossing, 
and hurried on wherever the pavement was 
sparsely peopled or whenever the persons en- 
countered were at all advanced in years. In- 
deed, the farther he followed the more was his 
attention compelled to remark that Hernando 
sharply avoided contact with the weakly, the 
old, and the decrepit, and wonder why the 
young people of either sex whom he brushed 
against should turn as if the touch of him 
waked suspicion and a something hostile. 
Thus they traversed the Haymarket, the Cri- 
terion pavement, and, flitting across to the 
Quadrant, the more popular side of Regent 
Street, among pushing groups, weary strag- 
glers, and steady pedestrians. Lefevre had a 
mind to turn aside and go home when he was 
opposite Vigo Street, but he was drawn on by 
the hope of observing something that might 
give him a clue to the Courtney mystery. 
When Oxford Circus was reached, however, 
Hernando jumped into a cab and drove rapidly 


92 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


off, and Lefevre returned to his own fireside. 

He sat for some time over a cigar and a 
grog, walking in imagination round and round 
the mystery, which steadfastly refused to dis- 
solve or to be set aside. His own honor, and 
perhaps the peace of his mother and sister, 
were involved in it. He was resolved to ask 
Julius for an explanation as soon as he could 
come to speech with him ; but yet, in spite of 
that assurance which he gave himself, he re- 
turned to the mystery again and again, and 
beset and bewildered himself with questions: 
Why was Julius estranged from his father? 
What was the secret of the old man’s life which 
had left such an awful impress on his face? 
And why was he nightly haunting the busiest 
pavements of London, in the crowd, but not of 
it, urged on as by some desire or agony ? 

He went to bed, but not to sleep. In the 
quiet and the darkness his imagination ranged 
without constraint over the whole field of his 
questionings. He went back upon Dr. Rippon’s 
story of the Spanish marquis, and fixed on the 
mention of his occult studies. He saw him, in 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE, 


93 


fancy, without wife or son, cut' off from the posi- 
tion and activities in his native country which 
his proper rank would have given, him, sequester 
himself from society altogether, and give him- 
self up to the study of those Arabian sages and 
alchemists in whom he had delighted when he 
was a young man. He saw him shun the day- 
light, and sleep its hours away, and then by 
night abandon himself like another Cagliostro 
to strange experiments with alembic and cruci- 
ble, breathing acrid and poisonous vapors, 
seeking to extort from Nature her yet undis- 
covered secrets, — the Philosopher’s Stone, and 
the Elixir of Life. He saw him turn for a little 
from his strange and deadly experiments, and 
venture forth to show his blanched and worn 
face among the throngs of men; but even there 
he still pursued his anxious quest of life in the 
midst of death. He saw him wander up and 
down, in and out, among the evening crowd* 
del i^h tins: in contact with such of his fellow- 
creatures as had health and youth, and seeking, 
seeking — he knew not what. From this phan- 
tasmagoria he dozed off into the dark plains of 


94 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE, 


sleep ; but even there the terribly blanched and 
emaciated face was with him, bending wistful 
worn eyes upon him and melting him to pity. 
And still again the vision of the streets would 
arise about the face, and the sleeper would be 
aware of the man to whom the face belonged 
walking quickly and sinuously, seeking and 
enjoying contact with the throng, and strangely 
causing many to resent his touch as if they had 
been pricked or stung, and yet urged onward 
in some further quest, — an anxious quest it 
sometimes resolved itself into for Julius, who 
ever evaded him. 

Thus his brain labored through the dead 
hours of the night, viewing and reviewing these 
scenes and figures, to extract a meaning from 
them; but he was no nearer the heart of the 
mystery when the morning broke and he was 
waked by the shrill chatter of the sparrows. 
The day, however, brought an event which 
shed a lurid light upon the Courtney difficulty, 
and revealed a vital connection between facts 
which Lefevre had not guessed were related. 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


95 


CHAPTER V. 

THE REMARKABLE CASE OF LADY MARY FANE. 

It was the kind of day that is called season- 
able. If the sun had been obscured, the air 
would have been felt to be wintry ; but the sun- 
shine was full and warm, and so the world 
rejoiced, and declared it was a perfectly lovely 
May day, — just as a man who is charmed with 
the smiles and beauty of a woman, thinks her 
complete though she may have a heart of ice. 
Lefevre, as he went his hospital round that 
afternoon, found his patients revelling in the 
sunlight like flies. He himself was in excellent 
spirits, and he said a cheery or facetious word 
here and there as he passed, which gave infinite 
delight to the thin and bloodless atomies under 
his care ; for a joke from so serious and awful 
a being as the doctor is to a desponding patient 
better than all the drugs of the pharmacopoeia : 


96 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


it is as exquisite and sustaining as a divine text 
of promise to a religious enthusiast. 

Dr. Lefevre was thus passing round his 
female ward, with a train of attentive students 
at his heels, when the door was swung open 
and two attendants entered, bearing a stretcher 
between them, and accompanied by the house- 
physician and a policeman. 

What is this } ” asked Lefevre, with a touch 
of severity ; for it was irregular to intrude a 
fresh case into a ward while the physician was 
going his round. 

“ I thought, sir,” said the house-physician, 
“ you would like to see her at once : it seems to 
me a case similar to that of the man found in 
the Brighton train.” 

“ Where was this lady found } ” asked Le- 
fevre of the policeman. He used the word 
“ lady ” advisedly, for though the dress was that 
of a hospital nurse or probationer, the -uncon- 
scious face was that of an educated gentle- 
woman. “ Why, bless my soul ! ” he cried, upon 
more particular scrutiny of her features — “it 


MASTER OF HIS PATE. 


97 


seems to me I know her ! Surely I do ! Where 
did you say she was found ? ” 

The policeman explained that he was on his 
beat outside St. James’s Park, when a park- 
keeper called him in and showed him, in one of 
the shady walks, the lady set on a bench as if 
she had fainted. The keeper said he had taken 
particular notice of her, because he saw from 
her dress and her veil she was a hospital lady. 
When he first set eyes on her, an old gentleman 
was sitting talking to her — a strange, dark, 
foreign-looking gentleman, in a soft hat and a 
big Inverness cape. 

“ Good heavens ! ” exclaimed the doctor. 
“ The very man ! That’s the meaning of it. 
And I did not guess ! ” 

His assistant and the policeman gazed at him 
in surprise ; but he recovered himself and asked, 
with a serious and determined knitting of the 
brows, if the policeman had seen the old gentle- 
man. The policeman replied he had not ; the 
gentleman was nowhere to be seen when he 
was called in. The keeper saw him only once ; 

when he returned that way again, in about a 
7 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


98 

quarter of an hour, he found the lady alone and 
apparently asleep. She had a very handsome 
umbrella by her side, and therefore he kept 
within eye-shot of her on this side and on that, 
lest some park-loafer should seize so good a 
chance of thieving. He thus passed her two or 
three times. The last time, he remarked that 
she had slipped a little to one side, and that her 
umbrella had fallen to the ground. He went 
to pick it up, and it struck him as he bent that 
she looked strangely quiet and pale. He spoke 
to her ; she made no reply. He touched her — 
he even in his fear ventured to shake her — but 
she made no sign ; and he ran to call the police- 
man. They then brought her straight to the 
hospital, because they could see she was a hos- 
pital lady of some sort. 

“ It must — it must be the same ! ” said 
Lefevre. 

“ I thought, when I first heard of it below,” 
said the house-physician, “ that it must be the. 
same man as was the cause of the other case, 
in the Brighton train.” 

“No doubt it is the same. But I was think- 


MasTMH op ms Pa TP, 


. 

mg of it in another — a far more serious sense ! ” 
1 hen turning to the waiting policeman, he said, 
“ Of course, you must report this to your 
inspector ? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” said the policeman. 

“ Give him* my compliments, then, and say I 
shall see him presently.” 

Yet, he thought, how could he speak to the 
official, with all that he suspected, all that he 
feared, in his heart ? with his attention on the 
qui vive with his experiences and speculations 
of the night, he was seized, as we have seen, by 
the conclusion that the “ strange, dark, foreign- 
looking gentleman ” of the park-keeper’s story 
was the same whose steps he had followed the 
evening before, without guessing that the man 
was perambulating the pavement and passing 
among the crowd in search, doubtless, of afresh 
victim for occult experiment or outrage ! That 
conclusion once determined, shock after shock 
smote upon his sense. What if the mysterious 
person were really proved to be Julius’s father.^ 
What if he had entered upon a course of exper- 
iment or outrage (he passed in rapid review 


100 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


the mysteries of the Paris pavement and the 
Brighton train, and this of the Park) — outrage 
yet unnamable because unknown, but which 
would amaze and confound society, and bring 
signal punishment upon the offender ? And 
what — what if Julius knew all that, and there- 
fore sought to keep his parentage hidden ? 

“ She is ready, doctor,” said the Sister of the 
ward at his elbow, adding with a touch of ex- 
citement in her manner as he turned to her, 
“ do you know who she is ? Look at this card ; 
we noticed the name first on her linen.” 

Dr. Lefevre looked at the card and read, 
“ Lady Mary Fane, Carlton Gardens, S.W.” 

“ I suspected as much,” said he. “ Lord 
Rivercourt’s daughter. It’s a bad business. 
She has been learning at St. Thomas’s the 
duties of nurse and dresser, which accounts for 
her being in that uniform.” 

He went to the bed on which his new patient 
had been laid, and very soon satisfied himself 
that her case was similar to that of the young 
officer, though graver much than it. He wrote 
a telegram to Lord Rivercourt, sent the house- 


MASTER OF ms FA TE. 


lOI 


physician for his electrical apparatus, and re- 
turned to the bedside. He looked at his 
patient. He had not remarked her hitherto 
more than other women of his acquaintance, 
though he had sometimes sat at her father’s 
table; but now he was moved by a beauty 
which was enhanced by helplessness — a beauty 
stamped with a calm disregard of itself — the 
manifest expression of a noble and loving soul, 
which had lived above the plane of doubt and 
fear and gusty passion. Her wealth of lustrous 
black hair lay abroad upon her pillow, and 
made an admirable setting for her finely- 
modelled head and neck. As he looked at this 
excellent presentment, and thought of the intel- 
ligence and activity which had been wont to 
animate it, resentment rose in him against the 
man who, for whatever end, had subdued the 
noble woman to that condition, and a deep 
impatience penetrated him that he had not dis- 
covered — had even scarcely guessed — the pur- 
pose or the method of the subjugation ! 

It was, however, not speculation but action 
that was needed then. The apparatus de- 


102 


MASTER OF ms FATE. 


scribed in the case of the young officer was 
ready, and the house-physician was waiting to 
give his assistance. The stimulation of Will 
and Electricity was applied to resuscitate the 
patient — but with the smallest success: there 
was only a faint flutter, a passing slight rigid- 
ity of the muscles, and all seemed again as it 
had been. The exhausting nature of the oper- 
ation or experiment forbade its immediate 
repetition. Disappointment pervaded the doc- 
tor’s being, though it did not appear in the 
doctor’s manner. 

“We’ll try again in half an hour,” said he to 
his assistant, and turned away to complete his 
round of the ward. 

At the end of the half-hour, Lefevre and the 
house-physician were again by Lady Mary’s 
bedside. Again, with fine but firm touch, 
Lefevre stroked nerves and muscles to stimu- 
late them into normal action ; again he and his 
assistant put out their electrical force through 
the electrode ; and again the result was nothing 
but a passing galvanic quiver. The doctor, 
though he maintained his professional calm, 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


103 


was smitten with alarm, — as a man is who, 
walking through darkness and danger to the 
rescue of a friend, finds himself stopped by an 
unscalable wall. While he sought fresh means 
of help, his patient might pass beyond his 
reach. He did not think she would — he hoped 
she would not ; but her condition, so obstinate- 
ly resistant to his restoratives, was so peculiar, 
that he could not in the least determine the 
issue. Imagination and speculation were ex- 
cited, and he asked himself whether, after all, 
the explanation of his failure might not be of 
the simplest — a difference of sex ! The secrets 
of nature, so far as he had discovered, were of 
such amazing simplicity, that it would not sur- 
prise him now to find that the electrical force 
of a man varied vitally from that of a woman. 
He explained this suspicion to his assistant. 

“ I think,” said he, “ we must make another 
attempt, for her condition may become the 
more serious the longer it is left. We’ll set the 
Sister and the nurse to try this time, and we’ll 
turn her bed north and south, in the line of the 
earth’s magnetism.” But just then the lady’s 


104 


MASTER' OF HIS FA TE. 


father, the old Lord Rivercourt, appeared in 
response to the doctor’s telegram, and the ex- 
periment with the women had to wait. The 
old lord was naturally filled with wonder and 
anxiety when he saw his apparently lifeless 
daughter. He was amazed that she should 
have been overcome by such influence as, he 
understood, the old gentleman must wield. 
She had always, he said, enjoyed the finest 
health, and was as little inclined to hysteria as 
woman well could be. Lefevre told the father 
that this was something other than hystero- 
hypnotism, which, while it reassured him as to 
his daughter’s former health, made him the 
more anxious regarding her present condition. 

“ It is very extraordinary,” said the old lord ; 
“ but whatever it is, — and you say it is like the 
young man’s case that we have all read about, 
whatever it is,” — and he laid his hand emphat- 
ically on the doctor’s arm, — “ she could not be 
in more capable hands than yours.” 

That assurance, though soothing to the doc- 
tor’s self-esteem, added gravely to his sense of 
responsibility. 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


105 


While they were yet speaking, Lefevre was 
further troubled by the announcement that a 
detective-inspector desired to speak with him ! 
Should he tell the inspector all that he had 
seen the night before, and all that he suspected 
now, or should he hold his peace ? His duty 
as a citizen, as a doctor, and as, in a sense, the 
protector of his patient, seemed to demand the 
one course, while his consideration for Julius 
and for his own family suggested the other. 
Surely never was a simple, upright doctor 
involved in a more bewildering imbroglio ! 

The detective-inspector entered, and opened 
an interview which proved less embarrassing 
than Lefevre had anticipated. The detective 
had already made up his mind about the case 
and his course regarding it. He put no curious 
questions ; he merely inquired concerning the 
identity and the condition of the lady. When 
he heard who she was, and when he caught the 
import of an aside from Lord Rivercourt that 
it would be worth any one’s while to discover 
the mysterious offender, professional zeal spark- 
led in his eye. 


I 06 MASTER OF HIS FATE. 

“ I think I know my man,” said he ; and the 
doctor looked the lively interest he felt. “ I am 
right, I believe. Dr. Lefevre, in setting this 
down to the author of that other case you 
had, that from the Brighton train ” Lefevre 
thought he was right in that. “ ‘ M. Dolaro ’ : 
that was the name. I had charge of the case, 
and was baffled. I shan’t miss him this time. 
I shall get on his tracks at once ; he can’t have 
left the Park in broad daylight, a singular man 
like him, without being noticed.” 

“ It rather puzzles me,” said the doctor, 
“ what crime you will charge him with.” 

“It is an outrage,” said Lord Rivercourt ; 
“ and if it is not criminal, it seems about time it 
were made so.” 

“ Oh, we’ll class it, my lord,” said the detec- 
tive ; “ never fear.” 

The detective departed; but Lord River- 
court seemed not inclined to stir. 

“You will excuse me,” said Lefevre; “but I 
must perform a very delicate operation.” 

“ To be sure,” said the old lord ; “ and you 
want me to go. How stupid of nie ! I kept 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


107 


waiting for my daughter to wake up : but I see 
that, of course, you have to rouse her. It did 
not occur to me what that machine meant. 
Something magneto-electric — eh ? Forgive one 
question, Lefevre. I can see you look anx- 
ious : is Mary’s condition very serious } — Most 
serious ? I can bear to be told the complete 
truth.” 

The doctor was touched by the old gentle- 
man’s emotion. He took his hand. “ It is 
serious,” said he — “ most serious, for this rea- 
son, that I cannot account for her obstinate 
lethargy ; but I think there is no immediate 
danger. If necessity arises, I shall send for 
you again.” 

“ To the House,” said Lord Rivercourt. “ I 
shall be sitting out a debate on our eternal 
Irish question.” 

Lefevre was left seriously discomposed, but 
at once he sent for the house-physician, sum- 
moned the Sister and the nurse, and set about 
his third attempt to revive his patient. He 
got the bed turned north and south. He care- 
fully explained to the two women what was 


lo8 MASTER OF HIS FATE. 

demanded of them, and applied them to their 
task ; but, whatever the cause, the failure was 
completer than before : there was not even a 
tremor of muscle in the unconscious lady, and 
the doctor was suffused with alarm and humilia- 
tion. Failure ! — failure ! — failure ! Such a 
concatenation had never happened to him be- 
fore ! 

But failure only nerves the brave and capable 
man to a supreme effort for success. Still self- 
contained, and apparently unmoved, the doctor 
gave directions for some liquid nourishment to 
be artificially administered to his patient, said 
he would return after dinner, and went his way. 
The society of friends or acquaintances was 
distasteful to him then ; the thought even of 
seeing his own familiar dining-room and his 
familiar man in black, whose silent obsequious- 
ness he felt would be a reproach, was disagree- 
able. All his thought, all his attention, all his 
faculties were drawn tight to this acute point — 
he must succeed ; he must accomplish the task 
he had set himself : life at that hour was worth 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


109 


living only for that purpose. But how was 
success to be compelled } 

He walked for a while about the streets, and 
then he went into a restaurant and ordered 
a modest dinner. He broke and crumbled his 
bread with both hands, his mind still intent on 
that one engrossing, acute point. While thus 
he sat he heard a voice, as in a dream, say, 
“ The very doctor you read about. That’s the 
second curious case he’s got in a month or 
so. . . . Oh yes — very clever ; he treats them, I 
understand, in the same sort of way as the 
famous Dr. Charbon of Paris would. ... I 
should say so ; quite as good, if not better than 
Charbon. I’d rather have an English doctor 
any day than a French. . . .His name’s in the 
paper — Lefevrer Then the doctor woke to the 
fact that he was being talked about. He per- 
ceived his admirers were sitting at a table a 
little behind him, and he judged from what had 
been said that his fresh case was already being 
made “ copy ” of in the evening papers. The 
flattering comparison of himself with Dr. Char- 
bon had an oddly stimulating effect upon him. 


no 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


notwithstanding that it had been uttered by he 
knew not whom, — a mere vox et prceterea nihiL 
He disclaimed to himself the truth of the com- 
parison, but all the same he was encouraged to 
bend his attention with his utmost force to the 
solution of his difficult problem — what to do to 
rouse his patient ? 

He sat thus, amid the bustle and buzz of the 
restaurant, the coming and going of waiters, 
completely abstracted, assailing his difficulty 
with questions on this side and on that, — when 
suddenly out of the mists that obscured it 
there rose upon his mental vision an idea, 
which appealed to him as a solution of the 
whole, and, more than that, as a secret that 
would revolutionize all the treatment of ner- 
vous weakness and derangement. How came 
the idea ? How do ideas ever come ? As inspi- 
rations, we say, or as revelations ; and truly 
they come upon us with such amazing and 
inspiriting freshness, that they may well be 
called either the one or the other. But nO 
great idea had ever yet an epiphany but from 
the ferment of more familiar small ideas,— just 


master of ms FATE 1 1 1 

as the glorious Aphrodite was born of the 
ferment and pother of the waves of the sea. 
Lefevre’s new idea clothed itself in the form of 
a comparative question — Why should there not 
be Transfusion of Nervotcs Force, Ether, or 
Electricity, just as there is Transfusion of 
Blood? 

He pushed his dinner away (he could scarce- 
ly have told what he had been eating and 
drinking), called for his bill, and returned with 
all speed to the hospital. He entered his 
female ward just as evening prayers were 
finished, before the lights were turned out and 
night began for the patients. He summoned 
his trusted assistant, the house-physician, 
again. 

“ I am about to attempt,” said he, “ an alto- 
gether new operation : the patient has re- 
mained just as 1 left her, I suppose 

“ Just the same.” 

“ Nervous Force, whether it be Electricity 
or not, is manifestly a fluid of some sort : why 
should it not be transfused as the other vital 
fluid is } ” 


, 1 2 MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 

Indeed, sir, when you put it so,” said the 
house-physician, suddenly steeled and bright- 
ened into interest, “ I should say, ‘ why not ? ’ 
The only reason against it is what can be 
assigned against all new things — it has not, so 
far as I know, been done.” 

“ Exactly. I am going to try. I think, in 
case we need a current, so to say, to draw it 
along, that we shall use the apparatus too ; we 
shall therefore need the women.” 

“ You mean, of course,” said the young man, 
you will cut a main nerve.” 

“ I shall use this nerve,’’ said Lefevre, indi- 
cating the main nerve in the wrist, — upon which 
the young man, in his ready enthusiasm, began 
to bare his arm. 

“ My dear fellow,” said Lefevre, “ do you 
consider what you are so promptly offering ? 
Do you know that my experiment, if successful, 
might leave you a paralytic, or an imbecile, or 
even — a corpse ? ” 

“ I’ll take the risk, sir,” said the young 
man. 

“ I can’t permit it, my boy,” said Lefevre, 


MASTE/^ OF ms FATE. 


laying his hand on his arm, and giving him 
a look of kindness. “ Nobody must run this 
risk but me. I don’t mean, however, to cut the 
nerve.” 

“ What then, sir? 

“ Well,” said Lefevre, “ this Nervous Force, 
or Nervous Ether, is clearly a very volatile, and 
at the same time a very searching fluid. It can 
easily pass through the skin from a nerve in 
one person to a nerve in another. There is no 
difficulty about that ; the difficulty is to set up 
a rapid enough vibration to whirl the current 
through ! ” He said that in meditative fashion : 
he was clearly at the moment repeating the 
working out of the problem. 

“ I see,” said the young man, looking thought- 
ful. 

“ Now you are a musician, are you not ? ” 

“ I play a little,” said the young man, with a 
bewildered look. 

“ You play the violin ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And, of course, you have it in your rooms. 
Would you be so good as bring me the bow of 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


II4 

your violin, and borrow for me anywhere 
a tuning-fork of as high a note as possible? ” 

The young man looked at Dr. Lefevre in 
puzzled inquiry ; but the doctor was considering 
the electrical apparatus before him, and the 
young man set off on his errands. When he 
returned with the fiddle-bow and the tuning-* 
fork, he saw Lefevre had placed the machine 
ready, with fresh chemicals in the vessels. 

“ Do you perceive my purpose ? ” asked 
Lefevre. He placed one handle of the appa- 
ratus in the unconscious patient’s right hand, 
while he himself took hold of her left arm with 
his right hand, so that the inner side of his 
wrist was in contact with the inner side of hers ; 
and then, to complete the circle of connection, 
he took in his left hand the other handle of the 
apparatus. “ You don’t understand ? ” 

“ I do not,” answered the young man. 

“ We want a very rapid vibration — much 
more rapid than usual,” said the doctor. “ I 
can apply no more rapid vibration at present 
than that which the note of that tuning-fork 
will produce. I want you to sound the tuning- 


MASTER OF HlS FA TE. 1 1 5 

fork with the fiddle-bow, and then apply the fork 
to this wire.” 

“ Oh,” said the young man, “ I understand ! ’’ 

“ Now,” said Lefevre, “you'd better call the 
Sister to set the electricity going.” 

The Sister came and took her place as before 
described — with her hands, that is, on the cylin- 
der of the electrode, her fingers dipping over 
into the vessels of chemicals. She opened her 
eyes and smiled at sight of the fiddle-bow and 
tuning-fork. 

“ I am trying a new thjng. Sister,” said 
Lefevre, with a touch of severity. “ I do not 
need you, I do not wish you, to exert yourself 
this time ; I only wish you to keep that position, 
and to be calm. Maintain your composure, 
and attend. . . . Now ! ” said he, addressing the 
young man. 

The fiddle-bow was drawn across the tuning- 
fork, and the fork applied with its thrilling note 
to the conducting wire which Lefevre held. 
The wire hummed its vibration, and electricity 
tingled wildly through Lefevre’s nerves. . . . 
There was an anxious, breathless pause for 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


ll6 

some seconds, and fear of failure began to con- 
tract the doctor’s heart. 

“ Take your hands away, Sister,” said he. 
Then, turning to his assistant, “ Apply that to 
the other wire,” said he; and dropping his 
own wire, he put his hand over the cylinder, 
with his fingers dipping into, the vessel from 
which the other wire sprang. When the wire 
hummed under the tuning-fork and the vibra- 
tion thrilled again, instantly he felt as if an 
inert obstruction had been removed. The 
vibratory influence whirled wildly through him, 
there was a pause of a second or two (which 
seemed to him many minutes in duration), and 
then suddenly a kind of rigor passed upon the 
form and features of his patient, as if each indi- 
vidual nerve and muscle were being threaded 
with quick wire, a sharp rush of breath filled 
her chest, and she opened her eyes and closed 
them again. 

“ That will do,” said Lefevre in a whisper, 
and, releasing his hands, he sank back in a 
chair. “ It’s a success,” said he, turning his 
eyes with a thin smile on the house-physician, 
and then closing them in a deadly exhaustion. 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


XI7 


CHAPTER VI. 

AT THE BEDSIDE OF THE DOCTOR. 

For the first time since he had come into the 
world Dr. Lefevre was that night attended by 
another doctor. The resident assistant-physi- 
cian took him home to Savile Row in a cab, 
assisted him to bed, and sat with him a while 
after he had administered a tonic and soporific. 
Then he left him in charge of the silent man 
in black, whom he reassured by saying that 
there was no danger; that his master had a 
magnificent constitution ; that he was only 
exhausted— though exhausted very much ; and 
that all he needed was rest, sleep, nourishment, 
— sleep above all. 

Lefevre slept the night through like a child, 
and awoke refreshed, though still very weak. 


1 1 8 MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 

He was bewildered with his condition for a 
moment or two, till he recalled the moving and 
exhausting experiences of the day before, and 
then he was suffused with a glow of elation, — 
elation which was not all satisfaction in the suc- 
cessful performance of a new experiment, nor 
in a good deed well done. His friend came to 
see him early, to anticipate the risk of his ris- 
ing. He insisted that he should keep his bed, 
for that day at least, if not for a second and a 
third day. He reported that the patient was 
doing well ; that she had asked with particu- 
larity, and had been informed with equal par- 
ticularity, concerning the method of her recov- 
ery, upon which she was much bemused, and 
asked to see her physician. 

It is a. pity she was told,” said Lefevre ; it 
is not usual to tell a patient such a thing, and 
I meant it to be kept secret, at least till it was 
better established.” But for all his protest he 
was again suffused with that new sense of in- 
ward joy. 

Alone, and lying idle in bed, it was but 
natural— it was almost inevitable— that the 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE, 


II9 

doctors thoughts should begin to run upon 
the strange events and suspicions of the past 
two days ; and their current setting strongly in 
one channel, made him long to be resolved 
whether or no the Man of the Crowd, the 
author of yesterday’s outrage, the “ M. Dolaro ” 
of whom the detective had gone in search, and 
who, if captured, would be certainly over- 
whelmed with contumely, if not with punish- 
ment, — whether or not that strange creature 
was Julius’s father, or any relation at all of 
Julius. He was not clear how he could well 
put the matter to Julius, since he so evidently 
shrank from discourse upon it, yet he thought 
some kind of certainty might be arrived at from 
an interview with him. On the chance of his 
having returned to his chambers, he called for 
pen and paper and wrote a note, asking him to 
look in, as he would be resting all day. “ Try 
to come,” he urged ; “ I have something im- 
portant to speak about.” 

This he sent by the trusty hand of his man 
in black ; and by mid-day Julius was announced. 
He came in confident, and bright as sunshine 


120 


MASAER OF HIS FA TE. 


(Lefevre thought he had never seen him look- 
ing more serene) ; but suddenly the sunshine 
was beclouded, and Julius ceased to be himself, 
and became a restless, timorous kind of crea- 
ture, like a bird put in a cage under the eye of 
his captor. 

“ What ? ” he cried when he entered, with an 
eloquent gesture. “ Lazying in bed on such a 
day as this ? What does this mean ? ” But 
when he observed the pallor and weakness 
of Lefevre’s appearance, he paused abruptly, 
refrained from the hand stretched out to greet 
him, and exclaimed in a tone of something like 
terror, “ Good heavens ! Are you ill ? ” A 
paleness, a shudder, and a dizziness passed upon 
him as if he sickened. “ May I,” he said, open 
the window ? 

“ Certainly, Julius,” said Lefevre, in surprise 
and alarm. “ Do you feel ill } ” 

“ No— no,” said Julius from the window, 
where he stood letting the air play upon his 
face, and speaking as if he had to put consider- 
able restraint upon himself. “ I — I am' un- 
fortunately, miserably constituted : I cannot 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


21 


help it. I cannot bear the sight of illness, or 
lowness of health even. It appals me ; it — it 
horrifies me with a quite instinctive horror; it 
deadens me.” 

Lefevre, whose abundant sympathy and vital- 
ity went out instinctively to succor and bless 
the weak and the ill, was inexpressibly shocked 
and offended by this confession of what to his 
sense appeared selfish cowardice and inhuman- 
ity. He had again and again heard it said, and 
he had with pleasure assented to the opinion, 
that Julius was a rare, finely-strung being, with 
such pure and glowing health that he shrank 
from contact with, or from the sight of, pain or 
ill-health, and even from their discussion ; but 
now that the singularity of Julius’s organization 
impinged upon his own experience, now that 
he saw Julius shrink from himself, he was 
shocked and offended. Julius, on his part, 
was pitiably moved. He kept away from the 
bed; he fidgeted to an^ fro, looking at this 
thing and that, without a sparkle of interest in 
his eye, yet all with his own peculiar grace. 

“ You wanted to speak to me,” he said. “ Do 


122 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


you mind saying what you have to say and 
letting me go ? ” 

“ I reckoned upon your staying to lunch,” 
said Lefevre. 

“ I can’t ! — I can’t ! . . . Very sorry, my dear 
Lefevre, but I really can’t ! Forgive what 
seems my rudeness. It distresses me that at 
such a time as this my sensations are so acute. 
But I cannot help it ! — I cannot ! ” 

“ You have been in the country, — have you 
not 1 ” said Lefevre, beginning with a resolve 
to get at something. 

“ I have just come back,” said Julius. “ My 
man told me you had called.” 

“ Yes. My mother wrote in a state of great 
anxiety about you, and asked me to go and look 
at you. She said that she and my sister had 
seen a good deal of you lately ; that you began 
to look unwell, and then ceased to appear, and 
she was afraid you might be ill.” 

This was put forth as an invitation to Julius 
to expound not only his own situation, but also 
his relations with Lady and Miss Lefevre, but 
Julius took no heed of it. He merely said, 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


123 


“No; I was not ill. I only wanted a little 
change to refresh me,” — and walked back to 
the window to lave himself in the air. 

“Well,” continued Lefevre, “since I called to 
see you, I have had an adventure or two. You 
never look at a newspaper except for the 
weather, and so it is probable you do not know 
that I had brought to me yesterday afternoon 
another strange case like that of the young 
officer a month ago, — a similar case, but worse.” 

“Worse.?” exclaimed Julius, dropping into 
the chair by the window, and glancing, as a 
less preoccupied observer than the doctor would 
have remarked, with a wistful desire at the 
door. 

, “ Much worse — though, I believe, from the 

same hand,” said Lefevre. “ A lady this time, 
— titularly and really a lady, — Lady Mary 
Fane, the daughter of Lord Rivercourt.” 

“ Oh, good heavens ! ” exclaimed Julius, and 
there were manifest so keen a note of appre- 
hension in his voice and so deep a shade of 
apprehension on his face, that Lefevre could 
not but note them and confirm himself in his 


124 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


suspicion of the intimate bond of connection 
between him and the author of the outrage. 
He pitied Julius’s distress, and hurried through 
the rest of his revelation, careless of the result 
he had sought. 

“ It may prove,” said he, “ a far more serious 
affair than the other. Lord Rivercourt is not 
the man to sit quietly under an outrage like 
that” 

Julius astonished him by demanding, “What 
is the outrage } Has the lady given an ac- 
count of it } What does she accuse the man 
of.?” 

“ She has not spoken yet, — to me, at least,” 
said Lefevre ; “ and I don’t know what the out- 
rage can be called, but I am sure Lord River-* 
court — and he is a man of immense influence 
— will move heaven and earth to orive it a leeal 

o o 

name, and to get it punishment. There is a 
detective on the man’s track now.” 

“Oh!” said Julius. “Well, it will be time 
enough to discuss the punishment when the 
man is caught. Now, if that is all your news.” 
he added hurriedly, “ I think ” He took 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


25 


up his hat, and was as if going to the door. 

“It is not quite all,” said the doctor, and 
Julius went back to the window, with his hat in 
his hand. 

“ I wonder,” he broke out, “ if we shall ever 
be simple enough and intelligent enough to 
perceive that real wickedness — the breaking of 
any of the laws of Nature, I mean (or, if you 
prefer to say so, the laws of God) — is best 
punished by being left to itself.'^ Outraged 
nature exacts a severe retribution! But you 
were going to say 1 ” 

“ The niglit before last,” continued Lefevre, 
determined to be brief and succinct, “ I was 
walking in the Strand, and I could not help 
observing a man who fulfilled completely the 
description given' of the author of this case and 
my former one.” 

“ Well ” 

“That is not all. When I caught sight of 
his face I was completely amazed ; for — I must 
tell you — it looked for all the world like you 
grown old, or, as I said to myself at the time, 
like a death-mask of you.” 


126 MASTER OF HIS FATE. 

“You — you saw that?” exclaimed Julius, 
leaning against the window with a sudden look 
of terror which Lefevre was ashamed to have 
seen : it was like catching a glimpse of Julius’s 

poor naked soul. “ And you thought ? ” 

continued Julius. 

“ You shall hear. Dr. Rippon — you remem- 
ber the old doctor ? — had a sight of a man 
in the Strand the night before, who, he believes, 
was his old friend Courtney that he thought 
dead, and who, I believe, was the man I saw.” 

Lefevre stopped. There was a pause, in 
which Julius put his head out of»the window, 
as if he had a mind to be gone that way. 
Then he turned with a marked control upon 
himself. 

“ Really, Lefevre,” said he, “ this is the queer- 
est stulEf I’ve heard for a long time ! This is 
hallucination with a vengeance ! I don’t like 
to apply such a tomfool word to anything, but 
observe how all this has come about. An ex- 
cellent old gentleman, who has been dining out 
or something, has a glimpse at night, on a 
crowded pavement, of a man who looks like a 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


t2J 


friend of his youth. Very well. The excellent 
old gentleman tells you of that, and it impresses 
you. You walk on the same pavement the 
next evening — “I won’t emphasize the fact of 
its being after dinner, though I daresay it 
was ” 

“It was.’' ' 

“ You have a glimpse of a man who 

looks — well, something like me ; and y6u in- 
stantly conclude, ‘ Ah ! the Courtney person — 
the friend of Dr. Rippon’s youth ! — and, surely, 
some relative of my friend Julius! * Next day 
this hospital case turns up, and because the 
description of its author, given by more or less 
unobservant persons, fits the person you saw, 
argal, you jump to the conclusion that the 
three are one I Is your conclusion clear upon 
the evidence 1 Is it inevitable } Is it neces- 
sary ? Is it not forced ? ” 

“ Well,” began Lefevre. 

“ It is bad detective business,” broke in 
Julius, “though it may be good friendship. 
You have thought there was trouble in this for 
me, and you wished to give me warning of it. 


128 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


But — que diable vas-tu faire dans cette galere ? 
You are the best friend in the world, and when- 
ever I am in trouble — and who knows ? who 
knows ? ‘ Man is born unto trouble, as the 

sparks fly upward ’ — I may ask of you both 
your friendship and your skill. One thing I 
ask of you here: don’t speak of me as you see 
me now, thus miserably moved, to any one ! 
Now* I must go. Good-bye.” And before 
Lefevre could find another \vord, Julius had 
opened the door and was gone. 

“ If it moves him like that,” said the doctor 
to himself, through his bewilderment, “there 
must be something worse in it — God forgive 
me for thinking so ! — than I have ever im- 
agined.” 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


129 


CHAPTER VII. 

CONTAINS A LOVE INTERLUDE. 

Next day Lefevre learned that the police 
had been again baffled in their part of the 
inquiry. The detective had contrived to trace 
his man — though not till the morning after the 
event — to the St. Pancras Hotel, where he had 
dined in private, and gone to bed early, and 
whence he had departed on foot before any one 
was astir, to catch, it was surmised, the first 
train. But, wherever he had gone, it was just 
as in the former case : from the time the hotel 
door had closed on his cloaked figure, all trace 
of him was lost. 

Nor could Lady Mary Fane add anything 
of moment to what Lefevre already knew or 
guessed. Her account of her adventure (which 
she gave him in her father’s house, whither she 

had been removed on the third day) was as 
9 


130 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


follows: She was returning home from St. 
Thomas’s Hospital, dressed according to her 
habit when she went there; she had crossed 
Westminster Bridge, and was proceeding 
straight into St. James’s Park, when she 
became aware of a man walking in the same 
direction as herself, and at the same pace. 
She casually noted that he looked like a dis- 
tinguished foreigner, and that he had about 
him an indefinable suggestion of death cling- 
ing with an eager, haggard hope to life, — a 
suggestion which melted the heart of the be- 
holder, as if it were the mute appeal of a drown- 
ing sailor. She was stirred to pity ; and when 
he suddenly appeared to reel from weakness, 
she stepped out to him on an overwhelming 
impulse, laid a steadying hand on his arm, and 
asked what ailed him. He turned on her a 
pair of wonderful dark eyes, which were animah 
like in their simple, direct appeal, and their 
moist softness. He begged her to lead him 
aside into a path by which few would pass : he 
disliked being stared at. Thinking only of him 
as a creature in sickness and distress, she 


master of ms fate. 


131 

obeyed without a thought for herself. She 
helped him to sit down upon a bench, and sat 
down by him and felt his pulse. He looked at 
her with an open, kindly eye, with a simple- 
seeming gratitude, which held her strangely 
(though she only perceived that clearly on 
looking back). He said to her suddenly, — 

“ There was a deep, mystical truth in the 
teaching of the Church to its children — that 
they should prefer in their moments of human 
weakness to pray to the Virgin-mother ; for 
woman is always man’s best friend.” 

She looked in his face, wondering at him 
still with her finger on his pulse, when she felt 
an unconsciousness come over her, not unlike 
“ the thick, sweet mystery of chloroform ; ” and 
she knew no more till she opened her eyes in 
the hospital bed. “ Revived by you,” she said 
to Lefevre. 

He inquired further, as to her sensations 
before unconsciousness, and she replied in 
these striking words : “ I felt as if I were 
strung upon a complicated system of threads, 
and as if they tingled and tingled, and grew 


132 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


tighter to numbness.” That answer, he saw, 
was kindred to the description given by the 
young officer of his condition. It was clear 
that in both cases the nerves had been serious- 
ly played upon ; but for what purpose } What 
was the secret of the stranger s endeavor 1 
What did he seek — and what find ? To these 
questions no satisfactory answer would come 
for the asking, so that in his impatience he 
was tempted to break through the severe self- 
restraint of science, and let unfettered fancy 
find an answer. 

But, most of all, he longed to see close to 
him the man whom the police sought for in 
and out, to judge for himself what might be the 
method and the purpose of his strange outrages. 
He scarcely desired his capture, for he thought 

of the possible results to Julius, and yet 

Day after day passed, and still the man was 
unfound, and very soon a change came over 
Lefevre’s life, which lifted it so far above the 
plane of his daily professional experience, that 
all speculation about the mysterious “ M. Do- 
laro,” and his probable relation to Julius, fell 


MASTER OF Ills FA TE. 


133 


for a time into the dim background. The 
doctor had been calling daily in Carlton Ter- 
race to see his patient, when, on a certain 
memorable day, he intimated to her father that 
she was so completely recovered that there was 
no need of his calling on her professionally 
again. The old lord, looking a little flustered, 
asked him if he could spare a few minutes' con- 
versation, and led him into his study. 

“ My dear Lefevre,” said he, “ I am at a loss 
how to make you any adequate return for what 
you have done for my daughter. Money can't 
do *it ; no, nor my friendship either, though 
you are so kind as to say so. But I have an 
idea, which I think it best to set before you 
frankly. You are a bachelor : it is not good 
to be a bachelor,” he went on, laying his hand 
affectionately on the doctor’s arm, and flushing 
— old man of the world though he was — flush- 
ing to the eyes. “ What — what do you think 
.of my daughter } I mean, not as a doctor, but 
as a man t ” 

Lefevre was not in his first youth, and he 
had had his admirations for women in his time. 


i34 


MASTER OF ms FA TF. 


as all healthy men must have^ but yet he Was 
made as deliriously dizzy as if he were a boy 
by his guess at what Lord Rivercourt meant. 

“ Why,” he stammered, “ I think her the 
most beautiful, intelligent, and — and attractive 
woman I know.” 

“ Yes,” said her father, “ I believe she is 
pretty well in all these ways. But— and you 
see I frankly expose my whole position to you 
— what would you think of her for a wife } '' 

“ Frankly, then,” said Lefevre, “ I find I have 
admired her from the beginning of this, but 
I had no notion of letting my admiration- go 
farther, because I conceived that she was quite 
beyond my hopes.” 

“ My dear fellow,” said Lord Rivercourt, 
“ you have relieved me and delighted me im- 
mensely. I know no man that I would like so 
well for a son-in-law. And, after all, it is only 
fitting that the life you have saved with such 
risk to yourself — oh, I know all about it — 
should be devoted to making yours happy. 
And — and I understand from her mother that 
Mary is quite of the same opinion herself. 


MASTER OF MIS FA TE. 


ns 


Now, will you go and speak to her at once, or 
will you wait till another day ? You will have 
to decide that,” said he, with a smile, “ not only 
as lover, but as doctor.” 

Lefevre hesitated for but an instant ; for 
what true, manly lover would have decided to 
withdraw till another day when the door to his 
mistress was held open to him } 

“ ni see her now,” he said. 

Lord Rivercourt led the doctor back to his 
daughter, and left him with her. There were 
some moments of chilling doubt and cold un- 
certainty, and then came a rush of warm feeling 
at the bidding of a shy glance from Lady 
Mary. He bent over her and murmured he 
scarcely knew what, but he heard clearly and 
with a divine ecstasy a softly- whispered “ Ves ! ” 
which thrilled in his heart for days and months 
afterwards, and then he turned to him her face, 
her beautiful face illumined with love, and 
kissed it: between two who had been drawn 
together as they had, what words were needed, 
or what could poor word.s convey ? 

About an hour later he walked to Savile 


136 MASTER OF HJS FATE. , 

Row to dress and return for dinner. He 
walked, because he felt surcharged with life. 

He desired peace and goodwill among men ; 
he pitied with all his soul the weary and the 
broken whom he met, and wondered with 
regret that men should get irremediably in- 
volved in the toils of their own misdeeds ; he 
was profuse with coppers, and even small silver, 
to the wretched waifs of society who swept the 
crossings he had to take on his triumphant 
way ; he would even have bestowed forgiveness 
on his greatest enemy if he had met him then ; 
— for the divine joy of love was singing in his 
heart and raising him to the serene and glorious 
empyrean of heroes and gods. Oh matchless 
magic of the human heart, which confounds 
all the hypotheses of science, and flouts all its 
explanations ! 

It was that evening when he and Lady Mary 
sat in sweet converse that she said to him these 
words, which he hung forever after about his 
heart — 

‘^Surely, never before did a man win a wife 
as you have won me ! You made me well by 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


137 


putting your own life into me ; so what could 
I do but give you the life that was already your 
own ! ” 

Thus day followed day on golden wings : 
Lefevre in the morning occupied with the 
patients that thronged his consulting room ; in 
the afternoon dispensing healing, and, where 
healing was impossible, cheerfulness and cour- 
age, in his hospital wards ; and in the evening 
finding inspiration and strength in the company 
of Lady Mary — for her love was to him better 
than wine. All who went to him in those days 
found him changed, and in a sense glorified. 
He had always been considerate and kind; but 
the weakness, the folly, and the wickedness of 
poor human nature, which were often laid bare 
to his searching scrutiny, had frequently 
plunged him into a welter of despondency and 
shame, out of which he would cry, “ Alas for 
God’s image ! Alas for the temple of the Holy 
Ghost ! ” But in those days it seemed as if 
disease and death appeared to him mere trivial 
accidents of life, with the result that no “ case,” 
however bad, was sent away empty of hope. 


138 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

STRANGE SCENES IN CURZON STREET. 

It happened, however, that just when all the 
bays and creeks of Dr. Lefevre’s attention were 
occupied, as by a springtide, with the excellent, 
the divine, fortune that had come to him, — 
when he seemed thus most completely divorced 
from anxious speculation about Julius Court- 
ney and “ M. Dolaro,” his attention was sud- 
denly and in an unexpected fashion hurried 
again to the mystery. The doctor had not seen 
Julius since the day he had received him in his 
bedroom — it must be admitted he had not 
sought to see him — but he had heard now and 
then from his mother, in casual notes and post- 
scripts, that Courtney continued to call in Cur- 
zon Street. 

On a certain evening Lady Lefevre gave a 
dinner and a reception, designed to introduce 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


39 


Lady Mary to the Lefevre circle. Julius was 
not at dinner (at which only members of the 
two families* sat down), but he was expected to 
appear later. It is probable, under the cir- 
cumstances, that Lefevre would not have re- 
marked the absence of Julius from the dinner- 
table, had it not been for Nora. He was pain- 
fully struck with her appearance and demeanor. 
She seemed to have lost much of her beautiful 
vigor and bloom of health, like a flower that 
has been for some time cut from its stem ; 
and she, who had been wont to be ready and 
gay of speech, was now completely silent, yet 
without constraint, and as if wrapped in a 
dream. 

“ What has come over Nora ? ” asked Le- 
fevre of his mother when they had gone to the 
drawing-room. 

“ Ah,” said Lady Lefevre, “ you have noticed 
something, have you ? Do you find her very 
changed, then ? ” 

“ Very much changed.” 

“ It’s this attachnient of hers to Julius. I 
want to have a talk with you about it present- 


140 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


ly. She seems scarcely to live when he is not 
with her. She sits like that always when he is 
gone, and appears only to dream and wait, — 
wait with her life as if suspended till he comes 
back.” 

“ Has it, indeed, got so far at that } ” said her 
son with concern. “ I had better have a word 
or two with Julius about it.” 

Just then Mr. Courtney was announced, and 
there were introductions on this side and on 
that. He turned to be introduced to Lady 
Mary, and for the time Lefevre forgot his sister, 
so engrossed was he with the altered aspect of 
his friend. He looked worn and weary, like a 
student when the dawn finds him still at his 
books. Lady Lefevre expressed that in her 
question — 

“ Why, Julius, have you taken to hard work? 
You’re not looking well, and we have not seen 
you for days.” 

A flush rose to tinge his cheek, but it sank 
as soon as it appeared. 

“ I have been out of sorts,” said he ; “ that is 
all. And you have not seen me because I 


A/ASTEA^ OF H/S FATE. 


141 

have bought a yacht and have been trying it on 
the river.” 

“ A yacht ! ” exclaimed Lefevre. “ I did not 
know you cared for the water.” 

“ You know me,” laughed J ulius in his own 
manner, “ and not know that I care for every- 
thing ! ” So saying, he laid his hand on Le- 
fevre’s arm. The act was not remarkable, but 
its result was, for Lefevre felt as if it were a 
blow, and stood astonished at it. 

During this interchange of words Lefevre 
(with Lady Mary) had been moving with Julius, 
as he drew off across the room to greet Nora, 
and the doctor could not help observing how 
the attention of all the company was bent on 
his friend. Before his entrance all had been 
chatting or laughing easily with their neigh- 
bors; now they seemed as constrained and 
belittled as is a crowd of courtiers when a royal 
personage appears in their midst. In truth, 
Julius at all times had a grace, an ease, and a 
distinction of manner not unworthy of a prince ; 
but on this occasion he had an added some- 
thing, an indefinable attraction which strangely 


42 


MASTER OF II IS FATE. 


held the attention. Lefevre, therefore, was 
scarcely surprised (though, perhaps, a trifle dis- 
appointed, considering that he was a lover) to 
note that Lady Mary was regarding Julius 
with a silent, wide-eyed fascination. They con- 
voyed Julius to Nora, and then withdrew, leav- 
ing them together. 

There were several fresh arrivals and new 
introductions to Lady Mary. These, Lefevre 
observed, she went through half-absently, still 
turning her eyes on Julius in the intervals with 
open and intense interest. 

“ Well,” said Lefevre at length, smiling in 
spite of a twinge of jealousy, “ what do you 
think, now you have seen him, of the fascinat- 
ing Julius ? ” 

She gave him no answering-smile, but replied 
as if she painfully withdrew herself from abstrac- 
tion, — “ I — I don’t know. He is very interest- 
ing and very strange. I — I can^t make hir)^ 
out. I don’t know.” 

Then Lefevre turned his eyes on Julius, and 
became aware of something strained in the 
relations of his sister and his friend. He could 


mastej^ of m3 Pate. 


143 


not forbear to look, and as he continued looking 
he instinctively felt that a passionate scene was 
being silently enacted between them. They sat 
markedly apart. Nora’s bosom heaved with 
suppressed emotion, and her look, when raised 
to Julius, plied him with appeal or reproach — 
Lefevre could not determine which. The 
doctor’s interest almost drew him over to them, 
when Lady Lefevre appeared and said to 
Julius — 

“ Do go to the piano, Julius, and wake us 
up.” 

Nora put out her hand with a gesture which 
plainly meant, “ Don’t ! . . . Don’t leave me ! ” 

But Julius rose, and as he turned (the doctor 
noted) he bent an inscrutable look of pain on 
Nora. He sat down at the piano and struck a 
wild, sad chord. Instantly it became as if the 
people in the room were the instrument upon 
which he played, — as if the throbbing human 
hearts around him were directly connected by 
invisible strings with the ivory keys that pulsed 
beneath his fingers. What was the music he 
played no one knew, no one cared, no one in- 


144 


MASTE/^ OF HIS FATE, 


quired : each individual person was held and 
played upon, . and was allowed no pause for 
reflection or criticism. The music carried all 
away as on the flood of time, showing them, on 
one hand, sunshine and beauty and joy, and all 
the pride of life ; and, on the other, darkness 
and cruelty, despair, and defiance, and death. 
It might have been, on the one hand, the music 
with which Orpheus tamed the beasts; and on 
the other, that which ^Dschylus arranged to 
accompany the last act of his tragedy of “ Pro- 
metheus Bound.” There was, however, no 
clear distinction between the joyous airs and 
the sombre : all were wrought and mingled into 
an exciting and bewildering atmosphere of mel- 
ody, which thrilled the heart and maddened the 
brain. But as the music continued, its joyous 
strains died out ; the instrument cried aloud in 
horror and pain, as if the vulture of Prometheus 
were tearing at its vitals ; darkness seemed to 
descend upon the room — a darkness alive with 
the sighs and groans, the disillusions and tears, 
of lost souls. The men sat transfixed with 
agony and dread, the women were caught in 


MASTER OF MIS FA TE. 


145 


the wild clutches of hysteria, and Courtney 
himself was as if possessed with a frenzy : his 
features were rigid, his eyes dilated, and his 
hair rose and clung in wavy locks, so that he 
seemed a very Gorgon’s head. The only per- 
son apparently unmoved was old Dr. Rippon, 
whose pale, gaunt form rose in the background, 
sinister and calm as Death ! 

The situation was at its height, when a black 
cat (a pet of Miss Lefevre’s) suddenly leaped 
on the top of the piano with a canary in its 
mouth, and in the presence of them all, laid its 
captive before Julius Courtney. The music 
ceased with a dissonant crash. With a cry 
Julius rose and laid his hand on the cat’s neck: 
to the general amazement the cat lay down 
limp and senseless, and the little golden bird 
fluttered away. Then the sobs of the women, 
hitherto controlled, broke out, and the murmurs 
of the men. 

“ O Julius! Julius I what have you done.f^ ” 
cried Nora, sweeping up to him in an ecstasy 
of emotion. 

He caught her in his arms, when with a 
10 


1 46 MASTkk Ok HIS kA TE. 

strange cry — a strained kind of laugh with a 
hysterical catch in it — she sank fainting on his 
breast. With a sharp exclamation of pain and 
fear he bore her swiftly from the room (he was 
near the door) and into a little conservatory that 
opened upon the staircase, casting his eyes upon 
Lefevre as he went, and saying, “ Come ! come 
quick ! ” Lefevre then woke to the fact that he 
had been fixedly regarding this last strange 
scene, while Lady Mary clung trembling to his 
arm. He hurried out after Julius, followed by 
Lady Mary and his mother. 

“ Take her ! ” cried Julius, standing away from 
Nora, and looking white and terror-stricken. 

“ Restore her ! Oh, I must not ! — I dare not 
touch her ! ” 

With nimble accustomed fingers Lady Mary ' 
undid Nora’s dress, while the doctor applied the 
remedies usual in hysterical fainting. Nora 
opened her eyes and fixed them upon Julius. 

“ O Julius, Julius ! ” she cried. Do not leave 
me ! Come near me ! Oh ! ... I think I 
am going to die ! ” 

“ My love ! my life ! my soul ! ” said Julius, 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


147 


stretching out his hands to her, but approach- 
ing no nearer, “ I cannot— I must not touch 
you ! No, no !. I dare not ! ” 

‘‘O Julius!” said she. “Are you afraid of 
me } How can I harm you ” 

“ Nora, my life I I am afraid of myself I You 
would not harm me, but I would harm you I 
Ah, I know it now only too well I ” 

Then, as she closed her eyes again, she said, 
“ I had better die I ” 

“ No, you must not die!” he exclaimed. 
“ Your time is not yet ! Yes, you will live ! — 
live ! But I must be cut off — though not for- 
ever — from the sweetest and dearest, the noblest 
and purest of all God’s creatures ! ” 

In the meantime Lefevre had been examin- 
ing his sister with closer scrutiny. He raised 
her eyelid and looked at her eye ; he pricked 
her on the arm and wrist ; and then he turned 
to J ulius. 

“Julius,” said he, “ what does this mean.?” 
“ It means,” answered Julius, covering his 
face with his hands, “ that I am of all living 
things the most accurst ! ” Then, with a cry of 


148 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


horror and anguish, he fled from the room and 
down the stairs. 

Lady Lefevre followed him in a flutter of 
fear. Presently she returned, and said, in 
answer to a look from her son, “ He snatched 
his hat and coat, and was gone before I came 
up with him.’^ 

Without a word Lefevre set himself to 
recover his sister, and in half an hour she was 
well enough to walk with Lady Mary’s assis- 
tance to bed. 

The guests, meanwhile, had departed, all but 
two or three intimates ; and in less than an 
hour Dr. Lefevre was returning home in the 
Fane carriage. Lord Rivercourt and he talked 
of the strange events of the evening, while 
Lady Mary leaned back and half-absently list- 
ened. They were proceeding thus along Pic- 
cadilly, when she suddenly caught the doctor’s 
arm and exclaimed — 

“ Oh ! Look ! The very man I met in the 
Park! I am sure of it! I can never forget 
the face ! ” 

Lefevre, alert on the instant, looked to recog- 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


149 


nize Hernando Courtney, the Man of the 
Crowd : he saw only the back of a person in a 
loose cape and a slouch hat turning in at the 
gateway of the Albany courtyard. In flashes 
of reflection these questions arose : Who could 
he be but Hernando Courtney — and where 
could he be going but to Julius’s chambers 
Julius, therefore (whose own conduct had been 
that night so extraordinary), must be familiar 
with his whole mysterious course, and con- 
sequently with the peril he was in. Before 
Lefevre could out of his perplexity snatch a 
resolution, Lord Rivercourt had pulled the cord 
to stop the coachman. The coachman, how- 
ever, having received orders to drive home, was 
driving at a goodly pace, and it was only on a 
second summons through the cord that he 
slackened speed, and obeyed his master’s direc- 
tion to “ draw up by the kerb.” 

“ I’ll get out,” said Lefevre, “ and look after 
him. You’d better get Mary home; she’s not 
very strong yet, and she has been upset to- 
night.” 

He put himself thus forward for another 


150 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


reason besides, — on the impulse of his friend- 
ship for Julius, without considering whether, in 
the event of an arrest and an exposure, he could 
do anything to shield Julius from shame and 
pain. 

He got out, saying his adieus, and the car- 
riage drove on. He found himself well past 
the Albany. He hurried back, nerved by the 
desire to encounter Julius’s visitor, and at the 
same time by the hope that he would not. In 
his heart was a turmoil of feeling, to the surface 
of which continued to rise pity for Julius. The 
events of the evening had forced him to the 
conclusion that Julius possessed the same sin- 
gular, magnetic, baleful influence on men and 
women as his putative father Hernando ; but 
Julius’s burst of agony, when Nora lay over- 
come, had declared to him that till then he had 
scarcely been aware of the destructive side of 
his power. All resentment, therefore, all sense 
of offence and suspicion which had lately begun 
to arise in his mind, was swallowed up in pity 
for his afflicted friend. His chief desire, now 
that he seemed reduced to the level of suffering 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE, 


151 

humanity, was to give him help and counsel. 

Thus he entered the Albany, and passed the 
porter. The lamps in the flagged passage were 
little better than luminous shadows in the dark- 
ness, and the hollow silence re-echoed the sound 
of his hurried steps. No one was to be seen or 
heard in front of him. He came to the letter 
which marked Julius’s abode. He looked into 
the gloomy doorway, and resolved he would see 
and speak to Julius in any case. He passed 
into the gloom and knocked at Julius’s door. 
After a pause the door was opened by Jenkins. 
Lefevre could not well make out the expression 
of the serving-man’s face, but he was satisfied 
that his voice was shaken as by a recent shock. 

“ I wish to see Mr. Courtney,” said Lefevre, 
in the half hope that Jenkins would say, “ Which 
Mr. Courtney 

“ Not at home, sir,” said Jenkins in his 
flurried voice, and prepared to shut the door. 

“ Not at home, Jenkins.'^ You don’t mean 
that!” 

“ Oh, it’s you, Dr. Lefevre, sir. Mr. Court- 
ney is not at home, but perhaps he will see 


1 5 2 MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 

you, sir! I hope he will; for he don’t seem to 
me at all well.” 

“ But if he is engaged, Jenkins } ” 

“ Oh, sir, you know what ‘ not-at-home ’ 
means,” answered Jenkins. “ It means any- 
thing or nothing. Will you step into the 
drawing-room, sir, while I inquire.? Mr. Court- 
ney is in his study.” 

“ Thank you, Jenkins,” said the doctor ; “ I’ll 
wait where I am.” 

Jenkins returned with deep concern on his 
face. “ Mr. Courtney’s compliments, sir,” said 
he, “ and he is very sorry he cannot see you to- 
night. It is a pity, sir,” he added, in a burst of 
confidence “ for he don’t seem well. He’s a- 
settin’ there with the lamp turned down, and 
his face in his hands.” 

“ Is he alone, then .? ” asked the doctor. 

“O yes, sir,” answered Jenkins, in manifest 
surprise. 

Has nobody been to see him since he 
came iri ? ” “ No, sir, nobody,” said Jenkins, in 
wider surprise than before. 

It appeared to Lefevre that his friend must 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


53 


be sitting alone with the terrible discovery he 
had that night made of himself. His heart, 
therefore, urged him to go in and take him by 
the hand, and give what help and comfort he 
could. 

“ I think,” said he to Jenkins, “ Til try and 
have a word with him.” 

“ Yes, sir,” said Jenkins, and led the way to 
the study. He tapped at the door, and then 
turned the handle ; but the door remained 
closed. 

“ Who is there ? ” asked a weary voice within, 
which scarce sounded like the voice of Julius. 

“ I — Lefevre,” said the doctor, putting Jen- 
kins aside. “ May not I come in 1 I want a 
friendly word with you.” 

“ Forgive me, Lefevre,” said the voice, “ that 
I do not let you in. I am very busy at pres- 
ent.” 

“ You are alone,” said Lefevre, “ are you 
not ” 

“Alone,” said Julius; “yes, all alone!” 
There was a melting note of sadness in the 
words which went to the doctor’s heart. 


154 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


“ My dear Julius/' said he, “ I think I know 
what’s troubling you. Don’t you think a talk 
with me might help you 1 ” 

“You are very good, Lefevre.” (That was 
an unusual form of speech to come from 
Julius.) “I shall come to your house in a few 
minutes, if you will allow me.” 

“ Do,” answered Lefevre, for the moment 
completely satisfied. “ Do ! ” And he turned 
away. 

But when Jenkins had closed the outer door 
upon him, doubts arose. Ought he not to 
have insisted on seeing whether Julius was in 
truth alone in the study And why could they 
not have had their talk there as well as in 
Savile Row 1 These doubts, however, he thrust 
down with the promise to himself that, if Julius 
did not come to him within half an hour, he 
would return to him. Yet he had not gone 
many steps before an unworthy suspicion shot 
up and arrested him : Suppose Julius had got 
rid of him to have the opportunity of sending 
a mysterious companion away unseen.? But 
Jenkins had said he had let no one in, and it 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


155 


was shameful to suspect both master and man 
of lying. Yet Lady Mary Fane had distinctly 
recognized the man who passed into the Albany 
courtyard : had he merely passed through on 
his unceasing pursuit of something unknown ? 
or were father and son somehow aware of each 
other ? Between this and that his mind be- 
came a jumble of the wildest conjectures. He 
imagined many things, but never conceived 
that which soon showed itself to be the fact. 


156 


MASTEIi OF ms FATE. 


CHAPTER IX. 

AN APPARITION AND A CONFESSION. 

He .let himself in with his latch-key, went 
into his dining-room, and sat down, dressed as 
he was, to wait. He listened through minute 
after minute for the expected step. The win- 
dow was open (for the midsummer night was 
warm), and all the sounds of belated and revel- 
ling London floated vaguely in the air. Twelve 
o’clock boomed softly from Westminster, and 
made the heavy atmosphere drowsily vibrate 
with the volume of the strokes. The rever- 
beration of the last had scarcely died away when 
a light, measured footfall made him sit up. It 
came nearer and nearer, and then, after a 
moment’s hesitation, sounded on his own door- 
step. With that there came the tap of a cane 
on the window. With thought and expectation 
resolutely suspended, Lefevre swung out of the 


MASTEI^ OF HIS FATE, 


157 


room and to the hall-door. He opened it, and 
stood and gazed. The light of the hall-lamp 
fell upon a figure, the sight of which sent the 
blood in a gush to his heart, and pierced him 
with horror. He expected Julius, and he looked 
on the man whom he had followed on the 
crowded pavements some weeks before, — the 
man whom the police had long sought for inef- 
fectually ! 

“ Won’t you let me in, Lefevre } ” said the 
man. 

The doctor stood speechless, with his eyes 
fixed : the face and dress of the person before 
him were those of Hernando Courtney, but the 
voice was the voice of Julius, though it sounded 
strange and distant, and bore an accent as of 
death. Lefevre was involved in a wild turmoil 
and horror of surmise, too appalling to be 
exactly stated to himself ; for he shrank with 
all his energy from the conclusion to which he 
was being forced. He turned, however, upon 
the request for admission, and led the way into 
the dining-room, letting his visitor close the 
door and follow. 


158 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


“ Lefevre/’ said the strange voice, “ I have 
come to show myself to you, because I know 
you are a true-hearted friend, and because I 
think you have that exquisite charity that can 
forgive all things.’’ 

“ Show myself ... As Lefevre listened to 
the strange voice and looked at the strange 
person, the suspicion came upon him — What if 
he were but regarding an Illusion 1 He had 
read in some of his mystical and magical 
writers, that men gifted with certain powers 
could project to a distance eidola or phantasms 
of varying likeness to themselves : might not 
this be such a mocking phantasm of Julius.'^ 
He drew his hand across his eyes, and looked 
again: the figure still sat there. He put out 
his hand to test its substantiality, and the voice 
cried in a keen pitch of terror — 

Don’t touch me ! — for your own sake ! . . . 
Why, Lefevre, do you look so amazed and 
overcome } Is not my wretched secret written 
in my face .? ” 

“ And you are really Julius Courtney T' asked 
Lefevre, at length finding utterance, with meas- 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


159 


ured emphasis, and in a voice which he hardly 
recognized as his own. 

“ I am Julius Courtney ” 

He paused, for Lefevre had put his head in 
his hands, shaken with a silent paroxysm of 
grief. It wrung the doctor’s heart, as if in the 
person that sat opposite him, all that was 
noblest and most gracious in humanity were 
disgraced and overthrown. 

“Yes,” continued the voice, “ I am Julius; 
there is no other Courtney that I know of, and 
soon there will be none at all.” The doctor 
listened, but he could not endure to look again. 
“ I am dying — I have been dying for a dozen 
years, and for a dozen years I have resisted and 
overcome death ; now I surrender. I have 
come to my period. I shall never enter your 
house again. I have only come now to confess 
myself, and to ask a last favor of you — a last 
token of friendship.” 

“ I will freely do what I can for you, Julius,” 
said the doctor, still without looking at him, 
“ though I am too overcome, too bewildered, 
yet to say much to you.” 


l6o MASTER OF HIS FATE. 

“ Thank you. You will hear my story and 
understand. It contains a secret which I, like 
a blind fool, have only used for myself, but 
which you will apply for the wide benefit of 
mankind. The request I have to make of you 
is small, but it may seem extraordinary, — be my 
companion for twelve hours. I cannot talk to 
you here, enclosed and oppressed with streets 
of houses. Come with me for a few hours on 
the water; I have a fancy to see the sun rise 
for the last time over the sea. I have my 
yacht ready near London Bridge, and a boat 
waiting at the steps by Cleopatra’s Needle ; a 
cab will soon take us there. Will you come 1 ” 

Lefevre did not look up. The voice of Julius 
sounded like an appeal from the very abode of 
death. Then he glanced in spite of himself in 
his face, and was moved and melted to unre- 
served compassion by the strained weariness of 
his expression — the open, luminous wistfulness 
of his eyes. 

“ Yes ; I’ll go,” said he. But can’t I do 
something for you first .? Let me consider 
your case.” 


MAS TER OF HIS FA TF. 1 5 1 

“ There s nothing now to be done for me, 
Lefevre,” said Julius, shaking his head. “ You 
will perceive that when you have heard me out.” 

The doctor went to find his man and tell him 
that he was going out for tlie night to attend 
on an urgent case. When he returned he stood 
a moment touched with misgiving. He thought 
of Lady Mary — he thought of his mother and 
sister. Ought he not to leave some hint behind 
him of the strange adventure upon which he 
was about to embark, and which might end he 
knew not how or where ? Julius was observing 
him, and seemed to divine his doubt. 

“ You need have no hesitation,” said he. “ I 
ask you only for twelve hours. You can easily 
get back here by noon to-morrow. There is a 
south-west wind blowing, with every prospect 
of settled weather. I am quite certain about it.” 

Fortified with that assurance, Lefevre put on 
a thicker overcoat and an old soft hat, turned 
out the lights in the dining-room and in the 
hall, closed the door with a slam, and stood 
with the new, the strange Julius in the street, 
fairly embarked upon his adventure. It was 


1 6 2 MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 

only with an effort that he could realize he was 
in the company of one who had been a familiar 
friend. They walked towards Regent Street 
without speaking. At the corner of Savile 
Row they came upon a policeman, and Lefevre 
had a sudden thrill of fear lest his companion 
should, at length, be recognized and arrested. 
Courtney himself, however, appeared in no wise 
disturbed. In Regent Street he hailed a pass- 
ing four-wheeler. 

“Wouldn’t a hansom be quicker.? said Le- 
fevre. 

“ It is better on your account,” said Julius, 
“ that we should sit apart.” 

When they entered the cab, Courtney en- 
sconced himself in the remote corner of the 
other seat from Lefevre ; and thus without 
another word they drove to the Embankment. 
At the foot of the steps by Cleopatra’s Needle, 
they found a waterman and a boat in waiting. 
They entered the boat, Lefevre going forward 
while Julius sat down at the tiller. The water- 
man pulled out. The tide was ebbing, and 
they slipped swiftly down the dark river, with 


Master or his fa tr. 


163 

broken reflections of lamps and lanterns on 
either bank streaming deep into the water like 
molten gold as they passed, and with tall build- 
ings and chimney-shafts showing black against 
the calm night sky. Lefevre found it necessary 
at intervals to assure himself that he was not 
drifting in a dream, or that the ghastly, burning- 
eyed figure, wrapped in a dark cloak in the stern, 
was not a strange visitor from the nether world. 

Soon after they had shot through London 
Bridge they were alongside a yacht almost in 
mid-stream. It was clear that all had been 
pre-arranged for Julius’s arrival; for as soon as 
they were on board, the yacht (loosed from her 
upper mooring by the waterman who had 
brought them down the river) began to stand 
away. 

“We had better go forward,” said Courtney. 
“ Are you warm enough ? ” 

The doctor answered that he was. Courtney 
o:ave an order to one of the men, who went 
below and returned with a fur-lined coat which 
his master put on. That little incident gave a 
curious shock to Lefevre : it made him think 


164 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


of the mysterious stranger who had sat down 
opposite the young officer in the Brighton train, 
and it showed him that he had not been com- 
pletely satisfied that his friend Julius and the 
person he had been wont to think of as Her- 
nando Courtney were one and the same. 

They went forward to be free of the sail and 
its tackling. Courtney, wrapped in his extra, 
his fur-lined coat, pointing to a low folding-chair 
for Lefevre, threw himself on a heap of cordage. 
He looked around and above him, at the rip- 
pling, flashing water and the black hulls of ships, 
and at the serene, starlit heavens stretching over 
all. 

“ How wonderful ! — how beautiful it all is ! ” 
he exclaimed. “ All, all ! — even the dullest and 
deadest-seeming things are vibrating, palpitat- 
ing with the very madness of life ! He set the 
world in my heart, and oh, how I loved ! — how 
I loved the world ! ” 

“ It is a wonderful world,” said Lefevre, try- 
ing to speak cheerfully; “and you will take 
delight in it again when this abnormal fit of 
depression is over.” 


Master of ms fate. 


165 

Never, Lefevre ! — never, never!” said 
Courtney in stienuous tones. “ I regret it 
deeply, bitterly, madly,— but yet I know that I 
have about done with it I ” 

“ Julius,” said Lefevre, “ I have been so 
amazed and bewildered, that I have found little 
to say : I can scarcely believe that you are in 
very deed the Julius I have known for years. 
But now let me remind you I am your friend ” 

“ Thank you, Lefevre.” 

“ And I am ready to help you to the 

uttermost in this crisis, which I but dimly under- 
stand. Tell me about yourself, and let me see 
what I can do.” 

“ You can do nothing,” said Julius, sadly 
shaking his head. “ U nderstand me ; I am not 
going to state a case for diagnosis. Put that 
idea aside ; I merely wish to confess myself to 
my friend.” 

“ But surely,” said Lefevre, “ I may be your 
physician as well as your friend. As long as 
you have life there is hope of life.” 

“ No, no, no, Lefevre I There is a depth of 
life — life on the lees — that is worse than death ! 


1 66 MASTER OF MIS FA TE. 

If I could retrace my steps to the beginning of 

this, taking my knowledge with me, then ! 

But no, I must go my appointed way, and face 
what is beyond. . . But let me tell you my story. 

“ You have heard something of my parentage 
from Dr. Rippon, I believe. My father was 
Spanish, and my mother was English. I think 
I was born without that sense of responsibility 
to a traditional or conventional standard which 
is called Conscience, and that sense of obliga- 
tion to consider others as important as myself, 
which, I believe, they call Altruism. I do not 
know whether the lack of these senses had been 
manifest in my mother’s family, but I am sure 
it had been in my father’s. For generations it 
had been a law unto itself ; none of its members 
had known any duty but the fulfilment of his 
desires ; and I believe even that kind of out- 
ward conscience called Honor had scarcely 
existed for some of them. I had from my 
earliest recollection the nature of these ances- 
tors : they, though dead, desired, acted, lived in 
me, with something of a difference, due to I 
know not what. Let me try to state the fact 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


167 

as it appears to me looking back : I was for 
myself the one consciousness, the one person in 
the world, all else — trees, beasts, men and 
women, and what not — being the medium in 
which, and on which, I lived. I conceived of 
nothing around me but as existing to please, 
to amuse, to delight me, and if anything 
showed itself contrary to these ends, I simply 
avoided it. What I wished to do I did; what I 
wished to have I had ; — and nothing else. 
1 do not suppose that in these points I was 
different from most other children of wealthy 
parents. Where I differed, I believe, was in 
having a peculiarly sensitive, and at the same 
time admirably healthy, constitution of body, 
which induced a remarkable development of 
desire and gratification. I can hardly make 
you understand, I am sure I cannot make you 
feel — myself cannot feel, I can only remember 
— what a bright natural creature I was when I 
was young.” 

“ Don’t I remember well,” said Lefevre, 
“ what you were like when I first met you in 
Paris?” 


1 68 MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 

“Ah,” said Julius, “the change had begun 
then, — the change that has brought me to this. 
I contemplate myself as I was before that 
with bitter envy and regret. I was as a being 
sprung fresh from the womb of primitive Na- 
ture. I delighted in Nature as a child delights 
in its mother, and I throve on my delight as a 
child thrives. I refused to go to school — and 
indeed little pressure was put upon me — to be 
drilled in the paces and hypocrisy of civilized 
mankind. I ran wild about the country ; I be- 
came proficient in all bodily exercises ; I fenced 
and wrestled and boxed ; I leaped and swam ; 
I rowed for days alone in a skiff ; I associated 
with simple peasants, and with all kinds of ani- 
mals ; I delighted in air and water, and grass 
and trees : to me they were as much alive as 
beasts are. Oh, what an exquisite, abounding, 
unclouded pleasure life was ! When I was 
hungry I ate ; when I was thirsty I drank ; 
when I was tired I slept ; and when I woke I 
stretched myself like a giant refreshed. It was 
a pure joy to me in those days to close my 
fingers into a fist and see the beauty and firm- 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


169 


ness of my muscles. When solemn, civilized 
people spoke to me of duty and work, I list- 
ened like an idiot. I had nothing in my con- 
sciousness to help me to understand them. I 
knew no more of duty than Crusoe on his 
island ; and as for work, I had no ambition, — 
why, then, should I work 1 I read, of course ; 
but I read because I liked it, not because I had 
tasks set me. I read everything that came in 
my way ; and very soon all literature and 
science — all good poetry and romance, and all 
genuine science — came to mean for me a fine, 
orderly expression of nature and life. And 
religion, too, I felt as the ecstasy of nature. So 
I fed and flourished on the milk of life and the 
bread of life. 

“ But a time came when I longed to live 
deeper, and to get at the pith and marrow of 
life. I was over twenty when it was revealed 
to me in a noonday splendor and w'armth of 
light, that the human is unspeakably the high- 
est and most enthralling expression of life in all 
Nature. That discovery happened to me when 
I was in Morocco with my father, who died 


170 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


there — -no matter how — among those whom he 
liked to believe were his own people: my 
mother had died long before. I had considerable 
wealth at my command, and I began to live at 
the height of all my faculties ; I lived in every 
nerve and at every pore. 

“ And then I began to perceive a reverse to 
the bounteous beauty and the overflowing life 
of Nature, — a threatening quality, a devouring 
faculty in her by which she fed the joyous 
abundance of her life. I saw that all activity, 
all the pleasant palpitation and titillation in the 
life of Nature and of Man, merely means that 
one living thing is feeding upon or is feeding 
another. I began to perceive that all the 
interest of life centres in this alter-devouring 
principle. I discovered, moreover, this strange 
point, — that the joy of life is in direct propor- 
tion to the rapidity with which we lose or sur- 
render life.” 

* “Yes,” said Lefevre, “the giving of pleasure 
is always more exquisite and satisfactory than 
the getting it.” 

“ I lost life,” continued Julius, without noting 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 171 

Lefevre’s remark — I lost life,— vital force, 
nervous ether, electricity, whatever you choose 
to call it,— at an enormous rate, but I as quick- 
ly replenished my loss. I had revelled for some 
time in this deeper life of give and take before 
I discovered that this faculty of recuperation 
also was curiously and wonderfully active in 
me. Whenever I fell into a state of weakness, 
well-nigh empty of life, I withdrew myself from 
company, and dwelt for a little while with the 
simplest forms of Nature.” 

“ But,” asked Lefevre, “ how did you get into 
such a low condition ? ” 

“ How? I lived said he with fervor. 
“ Yes ; I lived: that was how I I had always 
delighted in animals, .t then I began to find 
that when I caressed them they were not 
merely tamed, as they had been wont, but 
completely subdued ; and I felt rapid and full 
accessions of life from contact with them. If I 
lay upon a bank of rich grass or wild flowers, I 
had to a slight extent the same revivifying 
sensation. The fable of Antaeus was fulfilled 
in me. The constant recurrence and vigor of 


1 7 2 MASTER OF HIS FA TE, 

this recuperation not only filled me with pride, 
but also set me thinking. I turned to medical 
science to find the secret of it. I entered my- 
self as a student in Paris : it was then I met 
you. I read deeply, too, in the books of the 
mediaeval alchemists and sages of Spain, which 
my father had left me. It came upon me in 
a clear flood of evidence that Nature and man 
are one and indivisible, being animated by one 
identical Energy or Spirit of Life, however 
various may be the material forms ; and that 
all things, all creatures, according to the activ- 
ity of their life, have the power of communi- 
cating, of giving or taking, this invisible force of 
life. It furthermore became clear to me that, 
though the force resides in all parts of a body, 
floating in every corpuscle of blood, yet its 
proper channels of circulation and communica- 
tion are the nerves, so that as soon as a nerve 
in any one shape of life touches a nerve in any 
other, there is an instant tendency to establish 
in them a common level of the Force of Life. 
If I or you touch a man or woman with a 
finger, or clasp their hand, or embrace them 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


173 


more completely, the tendency is at once set 
up, and the force seeks to flow, and, according 
to certain conditions, does flow, from one to an- 
other, evermore seeking to find a common level, 
— always, that is, in the direction of the greater 
need, or the greater capacity. I saw then that 
not only had I a greater storage capacity, so to 
say, than most men, but also, therefore, when 
exhaustion came, I had a more insistent need 
for replenishment, and a more violent shrinking 
at all times from any weak or unhealthy person 
who might even by chance contact make a 
demand on my store of life.” 

“ And is that your secret? ” asked Lefevre. 
“ I have arrived in a different way at something 
like the same discovery.” 

“ I know you have,” said Julius. “ But my 
peculiar secret is not that, though it is con- 
nected with it. I am growing very tired,” said 
he, abruptly. “ I must be quick, Lefevre,” he 
continued in a hurried, weak voice of appeal ; 

grant me one little last favor to enable me to 
finish.” 

“ Anything I can do I will, Julius,” said Le- 


174 MASTER OF HIS FATE. 

fevre, suddenly roused out of the half-drowsiness 
which the soft night induced. He was held 
between alarm and fascination by the look which 
Julius bent on him. 

“ I am ashamed to ask^but you are full of 
life,” said Julius: 1 am at the shallowest ebb. 
Just for one minute help me. Of your free-will 
submit yourself to me for but a moment. Will 
you do me that service ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Lefevre, after an instant’s hesita- 
tion ; “ certainly I will.” 

Julius half rose from his reclining position ; 
he turned on Lefevre his wonderful eyes, which 
in the mysterious twilight that suffused the 
midsummer night burned with a surprising 
brilliance. Lefevre felt himself seized and held 
in their influence. 

“ Give me your hand,” said Julius. 

The doctor gave his hand, his eyes being 
still held by those of Julius, and instantly, as it 
seemed to him, he plunged, as a man dives into 
the sea, into a gulf of unconsciousness, from 
which he presently emerged with something 
like a gasp and with a tremulous sensation 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


^75 


about his heart. What had happened to him 
he did not know; but he felt slacker of fibre 
as if virtue had gone out of him, while Julius, 
when he spoke, seemed refreshed as by a 
draught of wine. 

“ How are you ? ” asked Julius. “ For heav- 
en’s sake don’t let me think that at the last I 
have troubled much the current of your life ! 
Will you have something to eat and drink ? 
There’s wine and food below.” 

“ Thank you, no ” said Lefevre, “ I am well 
enough, only a little drowsy.” 

“ I am stronger,” said Julius, but it will not 
last ; so let me finish my story.” 

Then he continued. “ Having explained to 
myself, in the way I have told you, the ease of 
my unwitting replenishment of force whenever 
I was brought low, 1 set myself to improve on 
my discovery. I saw before me a prospect of 
enjoyment of all the delights of life, deeper and 
more constant than most men ever know, — if 
I could only ensure to myself with absolute 
certainty a still more complete and rapid re- 
invigoration as often soever as I sank into ex- 


Master of Bis fate. 


176 

haustion. I was quite sure that no energy of 
life is finer or fuller than the human at its 
best." 

“ Good God ! " exclaimed Lefevre, turning 
away with an involuntary shudder. 

“For heaven’s sake!" cried Julius, “don’t 
shrink from me now, or you will tempt me to 
be less frank than I have been. I wish to make 
full confession. I know, I see now, I have 
been cruelly, brutally selfish — as selfish as 
Nature herself ! — none knows that better than 
I. But remember, in extenuation, what I have 
told you of my origin and my growth. And I 
had not the suspicion of a thought of injuring 
any one. Fool I fool I egregious fool that I 
was 1 I who understood most things so clearly 
did not guess that no creature, no being in the 
universe — god, or man, or beast — can indulge 
in arrogant, full, magnificent enjoyment without 
gathering and living in himself, squandering 
through himself, the lives of others, to their 
eternal loss and his own final ruin I But, as I 
said, I did not think, and it was not evident 
until recently, that 1 injured any one. I had 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 1 77 

for a long time been aware that I had an un- 
usual mesmeric or magnetic influence — call it 
what you will — over others. I cultivated that 
power in eye and hand, so that I was soon able 
to take any person at unawares whom I con- 
sidered fit for my purpose, and subdue him or 
her completely to myself. Then after one or 
two failures I hit upon a method, which I per- 
fected at length into entire simplicity, by which 
I was able to tap the nervous system and draw 
into myself as much as ever I needed of the 
abounding force of life, without leaving any 
sign which even the most skilful doctor could 
detect.” 

“ J ulius, you sicken me ! ” exclaimed Lefevre. 
“ I am a doctor, but you sicken me ! ” 

“ I explain myself so in detail,” said Julius, 
“ because you are a doctor. But let me finish. 
I lived that life of complete wedlock with Na- 
ture for I dare not think how many years. 

“ And you did not get weary of it ? ” asked 
Lefevre. 

“ Weary of it ? No ! I returned to it 

always, after a pause of a few days for the rein- 
12 


Master of ms fa tF. 


178 

vigoratlon I needed, — I returned to it with all 
the freshness of youth, with the advantage 
which, of course, mere youth can never have, — 
an amazingly rich experience. I revelled in the 
full lap of life. I passed through many lands, 
civilized and barbaric ; but it was my especial 
delight to strike down to that simple, passion- 
ate, essential nature w^hich lies beneath the 
thickest lacquer of refinements in our civilized 
societies. Oh, what a life it was ! — what a 
life I 

“ But a change came : it must have been 
growing on me for some time without my 
knowledge. I commonly removed from society 
when I felt exhaustion coming on me ; but on 
one occasion it chanced that I stayed on in the 
pleasant company I was in (I was then in 
Vienna). I did not exactly feel ill ; I felt mere- 
ly weary and languid, and thought that pres- 
ently I would go to bed. Gradually I began 
to observe that the looks of my companions 
were bent strangely on me, and that the expres- 
sion of their countenances more and more 
developed surprise and alarm. ‘ What is the 


mastjsj^ of ms fa te. 


179 


matter with you all ? ’ I demanded ; when they 
instantly cried, ‘ What is the matter with you ? 
Have you been poisoned ? ’ I rose and went 
and looked in a mirror ; I saw, with ghastly 
horror, what I was like, and I knew then that I 
was doomed, I fled from that company for- 
ever. I saw that, when the alien life on which 
I flourished was gone out of me, I was a worn 
old man — that the Fire of Life which usually 
burned in my body, making me look bright and 
young, was now none of it my own ; a few hot 
ashes only were mine, which Death sat cower- 
ing by ! I could not but sit and gaze at the 
reflection of the seared ghastliness of that face, 
which was mine and yet not mine, and feel 
well-nigh sick unto death. After a while, how- 
ever, I plucked up heart. I considered that it 
was impossible this change had come all at 
once ; I must have looked like that — or almost 
like that — once or twice or oftener before, and 
yet life and reinvigoration had gone on as they 
had been wont. I wrapped myself up, and 
went out. I found a fit subject. I replenished 
my life as theretofore ; my youthful, fresh ap- 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


i8o 

pearance returned, and my confidence with it 
I refused to look again upon my own, my worn 
face, from that time until to-night 

“ But alarm again seized me about a year 
ago, when I chanced by calculation to note that 
my periods of abounding life were gradually 
getting shorter, — that I needed reinvigoration 
at more frequent intervals; — not that I did not 
take as much from my subjects as formerly — 
on the contrary, I seemed to take more — but 
that I lost more rapidly what I took, as if my 
body were becoming little better than a fine 
sieve. The last stage of all was this that you 
are familiar with, when my subjects began to be 
so utterly exhausted as to attract public notice. 
Yet that is not what has given me pause, and 
made me resolve to bring the whole weary, sel- 
fish business to an end. Could I not have gone 
elsewhere — anywhere, the wide world over — 
and lived my life ? But I was kept, I was teth- 
ered here, to this London by a feeling I had 
never known before. Call it by the common 
fool’s name of Love ; call it what you will. I 
was fascinated by your sister Nora, even as 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


l8l 

others had been fascinated by me, even as I had 
been in my youth by the bountiful, gracious 
beauty of Nature.” 

“ I have wanted to ask you,” said Lefevre, 
“for an explanation of your conduct towards 
Nora. Why did you — with your awful life — ■ 
life which, as you say, was not your own, and 
your extraordinary secret — why did you remain 
near her, and entangle her with your fascina- 
tions } What did you desire — what did you 
hope for ” 

“ I scarcely know for what I hoped. But let 
me speak of her; for she has traversed and 
completely eclipsed my former vision of Nature. 
I have told you what my point of view was, — 
alone in the midst of Nature. I was for myself 
the only consciousness in the world, and all the 
world besides was merely a variety of material 
and impression, to be observed and known, to 
be interested in and delighted with. I was thus 
lonely, lonely as a despot, when Nora, your 
sister, appeared to me, and instantly I became 
aware there was another consciousness in the 
world as great as, or greater than, my own, — 


1 8 2 MASTER OF HIS FA TE, 

another person than myself, a person of supreme 
beauty and intelligence and faculty. She be- 
came to me all that Nature had been, and more. 
She expressed for me all that I had sought to 
find diffused through Nature, and at the same 
time she stood forth to me as an equal of my 
own kind, with as great a capacity for life. At 
first I had a vision of our living and reigning 
together, so to say, though the word may seem 
to you absurd ; but I soon discovered that there 
was a gulf fixed between us, — the gulf of the 
life I had lived ; she stood pure where I had 
stood a dozen years ago. So, gradually, she 
subverted my whole scheme of life ; more and 
more, without knowing it, she made me see and 
judge myself with her eyes, till I felt altogether 
abased before her. But that which finally 
stripped the veil from me, and showed me my- 
self as the hateful incarnation of relentlessly 
devouring Self, was my influence upon her, 
which culminated in the event of last night. 
Can you conceive how I was smitten and 
pierced with horror by the discovery that rose 
on me like a night-mare, that even on her sweet 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


183 

pure, sumptuous life, I had unwittingly begun 
to prey ? For that discovery flung wide the 
door of the future and showed me what I would 
become. 

“ Beautiful, calm, divine Nora ! If I could 
but have continued near her without touching 

O 

her, to delight in the thought and the sight of 
as one delights in the wind and the sunshine ! 
But it could not be. I could only appear fit 
company for her if I refreshed and strengthened 
myself as I had been wont ; but my new dis- 
gust of myself, and pity for my victims, made 
me shudder at the thought. What then ? Here 
I am, and the time has come (as that old doctor 
said it would) when death appears more beauti- 
ful and friendly and desirable than life. For- 
give me, Lefevre — forgive me on Nora’s part, — 
and forgive me in the name of human nature.” 

Lefevre could not reply for the moment. He 
sat convulsed with heart-rending sobs. He put 
out his hand to Julius. 

“ No, no ! ” exclaimed Julius, “ I must not 
take your hand. You know I must not.” 

“ Take my hand/’ cried Lefevre. “ I know 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


184 

what it means. Take my life ! Leave me but 
enough to recover. I give it you freely, for 1 
wish you to live. You shall not die. By 
heaven! you shall not die. O Julius, Julius | 
why did you not tell me this long ago ? Science 
has resource enough to deliver you from your 
mistake.” 

“ Lefevre,” said Julius, — and his eyes spark- 
led with tears and his weakening voice was 
choked — “ your friendship moves me deeply — to 
the soul. But science can do nothing for me : 
science has not yet sufficient knowledge of the 
principle on which I lived. Would you have 
me, then, live on, — passing to and fro among 
mankind merely as a blight, taking the energy 
of life, even from whomsoever I would not? 
No, I must die I Death is best I ” 

“ I will not let you die,” said Lefevre, rising 
to take a pace or two on the deck. “You 
shall come home with me. I shall feed your 
life — there are dozens besides myself who will 
be, glad to assist — till you are healed of the 
devouring demon you have raised within you.” 

“ No, no, no, my dear friend ! ” cried Julius, 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 185 

“ I have steadily sinned against the most vital 
law of life/’ 

“ Julius/’ said Lefevre, standing over him, 
“ my friendship, my love for you may blind me 
to the enormity of your sin, but I can find it in 
me to say, in the name of humanity, ‘ I forgive 
you all I Now, rise up and live anew! Your 
intelligence, your soul is too rare and admirable 
to be snuffed out like a guttering candle ! ’ ” 
“Lefevre,” said Julius, “you are a perfect 
friend! But your knowledge of this secret 
force of Nature, which we have both studied, is 
not so great as mine. Let me tell you, then, 
that this mystical saying, which I once scoffed 
at, is the profoundest truth : — 

‘Who loveth life shall lose it all ; 

Who seeketh life shall surely fall I ' 

There is no remedy for me but death, which 
(who knows 1 ) may be the mother of new life ! ” 
“ It would have been better for you,” said 
Lefevre, sitting down again with his head in 
his hands, “ better — if you had never seen 
Nora.” 


i86 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


“ Nay, nay,” cried Julius, sitting up, animate 
with afresh impulse of life. “Better for her, 
dear, beautiful soul, but not for me ! I have 
truly lived only since I saw her, and I have the 
joy of feeling that I have beheld and known 
Nature’s sole and perfect chrysolite. But I must 
be quick, my friend ; the dawn will soon be upon 
us. There is but one other thing for me to 
speak of — my method of taking to myself the 
force of life. It is my secret; it is perfectly 
adapted for professional use, and I wish to give 
it to you, because you are wise enough in mind, 
and great enough of soul, to use it for the 
benefit of mankind.” 

“I will not hear you, Julius!” exclaimed 
Lefevre. “ I am neither wise nor great. Your 
perfect secret would be too much for me. I 
might be tempted to keep it for my own use. 
Come home with me, and apply it well yourself.” 

Julius was silent for a space, murmuring 
only, “ I have no time for argument.” Then 
his face assumed the white sickness of death, 
and his dark eyes seemed to grow larger and 
to burn with a concentrated fire. 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


187 


“ Lefevre ! ” he panted in amazement, “ do 
you know that you are refusing such a medical 
and spiritual secret as the world has not known 
for thousands of years ? A secret that would 
enable you — -you — to work cures more wonder- 
ful than any that are told of the greatest Eastern 
Thaumaturge ? ” 

“ I have discovered a method,” answered the 
doctor, — “ an imperfect, clumsy method — for 
myself, of transmitting nervous force or ether 
for curative purposes. That, for the present, 
must be enough for me. I cannot hear your 
secret, Julius.” 

“ Lefevre, I beg of you,” pleaded Julius, “ take 
it from me. I have promised myself, as a last 
satisfaction, that the secret I have guarded — it 
is not altogether mine : it is an old oriental 
secret — that now I would hand it over to you 
for the good of mankind, that at the last I might 
say to myself, ‘ I have, after all, opened my 
hand liberally to my fellow-men ! ’ For pity’s 
sake, Lefevre, don’t deny me that small final 
satisfaction ! ” 

“Julius,” said Lefevre, firmly, “ if your method 


i88 


MASTER OF HIS FA TE. 


is SO perfect — as I believe it must be from what 
I have seen — I dare not lay on myself the re- 
sponsibility of possessing its secret.” 

“ Would not my example keep you from using 
it selfishly ? ” 

“ Does the experience of another,” demanded 
the doctor, “ however untoward it may be, ever 
keep a man from making his own ? I dare not 
— I dare not trust myself to hold your perfect 
secret.” 

“ Then share it with others,” responded 
Julius, promptly; “and I daresay it is not so 
perfect, but that it could be made more perfect 
still.” 

“ ni have nothing to do with it, Julius ; you 
must keep and use it yourself.” 

“Then,” cried Julius, throwing himself on 
his bed of cordage, “ then there will be, indeed, 
an end of me ! ” 

There was no sound for a. time, but the-soft 
rush of the sea at the bows of the yacht. They 
had left the Thames water some distance be- 
hind, and were then in that part of the estuary 
where it is just possible in mid-channel to 


MASTER OF HIS FATE. 


189 


descry either coast. The glorious rose of dawn 
was just beginning to flame in the eastern sky. 
Lefevre looked about him, and strove to shake 
off the sensation, which would cling to him, 
that he was involved in a strange dream 
There lay Julius or Hernando Courtney before 
him ; or at least the figure of a man with his 
face hid in his hands. What more could be 
said or done.*^ 

In the meantime light was swiftly rushing up 
the sky and waking all things to life. A flock 
of seagulls came from the depth of the night 
and wheeled about the yacht, their shrill screams 
strangely softened in the morning air. At the 
sound of them J ulius roused himself, and raised 
himself on his elbow to watch their beautiful 
evolutions. As he watched, one and another 
swooped gracefully to the water, and hanging 
there an instant, rose with a fish and flew away. 
Julius flung himself again on his face. 

O, God ! ” he cried. “ Is it not horrible } 
Even on such a beautiful day as this death 
wakes as early as life ! Devouring death is 
ushered in by the dawn, hand in hand with 


190 


MASTER OF HIS FA TF. 


generous life ! Awful, devilish. Nature ! that 
makes all creatures full of beauty and delight, 
and then condemns them to live upon each 
other ! Nature is the sphinx : she appears soft 
and gentle and more lovely than heart can bear, 
but if you look closer, you see she is a creature 
with claws and teeth that rend and devour ! I 
thought, fool that I was ! that I had found the 
secret to solve her riddle ! But it was an empty 
hope, a vain imagination. . . . Yet, I have 

lived ! Yes, I have lived ! ” 

He rose and stood erect, facing the dawn, 
with his back to Lefevre. He stood thus for 
some time, with one foot on the low bulwark of 
the vessel, till the sun leaped above the horizon 
and flamed with blinding brilliance across the 
sea. 

“ Ah ! ” he murmured. “ The superb, the 
glorious sun! Unwearied lord of Creation 
Generous giver of all light and life I And yet, 
who knows what worlds he may not have 
drawn into his flaming self, and consumed 
during the aeons of his existence } It is ever 
and everywhere the same ; death in company 


MASTER OF HIS FATE, 


191 

with life ! And swift, strong death is better 
than slow, weak life ! . . . Almost the 

splendor and inspiration of his rising tempt me 
to stay ! Great nourisher and renewer of life’s 
heat ! ” 

He put off his fur coat, and let it fall on the 
deck, and stood for a while as if wrapt in 
ecstasy. Then, before Lefevre could conceive 
his intention, his feet were together on the bul- 
wark, and with a flash and a plunge he was 
gone. 

Amazement held the doctor’s energies con- 
gealed, though but for an instant or two. Then 
he threw off hat and coat, and stood alert 
and resolute to dive to Julius’s rescue when he 
rose, while those who manned the yacht pre- 
pared to cast a buoy and line. Not a ripple or 
flash of water passed unheeded ; the flood of 
sunshine rose fuller and fuller over the world ; 
moments grew to minutes, and minutes swelled 
to hopeless hours under the doctor’s weary 
eyes, till it seemed to them as if the universe 
were only a swirling, greedy ocean ; — but no 
sign appeared of his night’s companion : his life 


1 9 2 MAS TER OF HIS FA TE, 

was quenched in the depths of the restless 
waters, as a flaming meteor is quenched in 
night. At length Lefevre ordered the yacht to 
stand away to the shore, his heart torn with 
grief and self-upbraiding. He had called Court- 
ney his friend, and yet until that last he had 
never won his inner confidence; and now he 
knew that his friend — he of the gentle heart, 
the peerless intelligence, and the wildly erring 
life — was dead in the hour of self-redemption. 

When he had landed, however, given to the 
proper authorities such information as was 
necessary, and set off by train on his return to 
town, the agitation of his grief began to 
assuage ; and when next day, upon the publi- 
cation in the papers of the news of Courtney’s 
death by drowning, a solicitor called in Savile 
Row with a will which he had drawn up two 
days before, and by which all Julius Courtney’s 
property was left to Dr. Lefevre, to dispose of 
as he thought best, “ for scientific and humane 
ends,” the doctor admitted to his reason that a 
death that could thus calmly be prepared was 
not lightly to be questioned. 


MASTER OT HIS FATE. 1 93 

“ He must have known best,” he said to him- 
self, as he bowed over his hands — “ he must 
have known best when to put off the poisoned 
garment of life he had woven for himself.” 


THE END. 




distressing ailments peculiar to females, 
at the Invalids’ Hotel and Surgical In- 
stitute, Buffalo, N. Y., has afforded a 
vast experience in nicely adapting and 
thoroughly testing remedies for the 
cure of woman’s peculiar maladies. 

Dr. Pierce’s Favorite PrCT Op- 
tion is the outgrowth, or result, of this 
great and valuable experience. Thou- 
sands of testimonials received from pa- 
tients and from physicians who have 
tested it in the more aggravated and 
obstinate cases which had baffled their 
skill, prove it to be the most wonderful 
remedy ever devised for the relief and 
cure of suffering women. It is not re- 
commended as a “cure-all,” but as a 
most perfect Specific for woma ' 
peculiar ailments. 

As a powerful, invigorating 
tonic it imparts strength to the whole 
system, and to the uterus, or womb and 
its appendages, in particular. For over- 
worked, “worn-out,” “run-down,” de- 
bilitated teachers, milliners, dressmak- 
ers, seamstresses, “shop-girls,” house- 
keepers, nursing mothers, and feeble 
Women generally. Dr. Pierce’s Favorite 
Prescription is the greatest earthly boon, 
being unequalled as an appetizing cor- 
dial and restorative tonic. It promotes 
digestion and assimilation of food, cures 
nausea, weakness of stomach, indiges- 
tion, bloating and eructations of gas. 

As a soothing and strengthen- 
ing nervine, “ Favorite Prescription ” 
is unequalled and is invaluable in affay- 
ing and subduing nervous excitability, 
irritability, exhaustion, prostration, hys- 
teria, spasms and other distressing, nerv- 
ous symptoms commonly attendant upon 
functional and organic disease of the 
womb. It induces refreshing sleep and 
relieves mental anxiety and despond- 
Gncv 

Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescrip- 
tion is a legitimate medicine, 

carefully compounded by an experienc- 
ed and skillful physician, and adapted 
to woman’s delicate organization. It is 
purely vG^ctablo in its composition uud 


perfectly harmless in its effects In any 
condition of the system. 

“Favorite Prescription” is a 
positive ■ cure for the most compli- 
cated and obstinate cases of leucorrhea, 
or “ whites,” excessive flowing at month- 
ly periods, painful menstruation, unnat- 
ural suppressions, prolapsus or falling 
of the womb, weak back, “ female weak- 
ness,” anteversion, retroversion, bearing 
down sensations, chronic congestion, in- 
flammation and ulceration of the womb, 
inflammation, pain and tenderness in 
ovaries, accompanied with internal heat. 

In pregnancy, “ Favorite Prescrip- 
tion” is a “mother’s cordial,” relieving 
nausea, weakness of stomach and other 
distressing symptoms common to that 
condition. If its use is kept up in the 
latter months of gestation, it so prepares 
the system for delivery as to greatly 
lessen, and many times almost entirely 
do away with the sufferings of that try- 
ing ordeal. 

“ Favorite Prescription,” when 
taken in connection with the use of 
Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Discovery, 
and small laxative doses of Dr. Pierce’s 
Purgative Pellets (Little Liver Pills), 
cures Liver, Kidney and Bladder dis- 
eases. Their combined use also removes 
blood faints, and abolishes cancerous 
and scrofulous humors from the system. 

Treating tlie Wrong Disease.— 
Many times women call on their family 
physicians, suffering, as they imagine, 
one fronr^yspepsia, another from heart 
disease, another from liver or kidney 
disease, another from nervous exhaus- 
tion or prostration, another with pain 
here or there, and in this way they all 
present alike to themselves and their 
easy-going and indifferent, or over-busy 
doctor, separate and distinct diseases, 
for which he prescribes his pills and 
potions, assuming them to be such, 
when, in reality, they are all only symp- 
toms caused by some womb disorder. 
The physician, ignorant of the cause of 
suffering, encourages his practice until 
large Lills are made. The suffering pa- 
tient gets no better, but probably worse 
by reason of the delay, wrong treatment 
and consequent complications. A prop- 
er medicine, like Dr. Pierce’s Favorite 
Prescription, directed to the cause would 
have entirely removed the disease, there- 
by dispelling all those distressing symp- 
toms, and instituting comfort instead of 
prolonged misery. 

“Favorite Frescriptioii ” is the 

only medicine for women sold, by drug- 
gists, under a positive guarantee, 
from the manufacturers, that it will 
give satisfaction in every case, or money 
will be refunded. This guarantee has 
been printed on the bottle-wrapper, and 
faithfully carried out for many years. 
Large bottles (100 doses) $1.00, or 
six bottles for $5.00. 

Rend ten cents in stamps for Dr. 
Pierce’s large, illustrated Treatise (160 
pages) on Diseases of Women. Address, 

World’s Dispensary Medical Association, 
No. 668 Main stkkkt, BUFFALO^ N, i; 







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